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Qihoo 360 (; approximate pronunciation CHEE-hoo), full name 360 Security Technology Inc., is a Chinese internet security company that has developed the
antivirus software Antivirus software (abbreviated to AV software), also known as anti-malware, is a computer program used to prevent, detect, and remove malware. Antivirus software was originally developed to detect and remove computer viruses, hence the nam ...
programs 360 Safeguard and 360 Mobile Safe, the Web browser 360 Secure Browser, and the mobile application store 360 Mobile Assistant. It was founded by Zhou Hongyi and Qi Xiangdong in June 2005. The company's head office is in
Chaoyang District, Beijing Chaoyang District () is a core district of Beijing. It borders the districts of Shunyi to the northeast, Tongzhou to the east and southeast, Daxing to the south, Fengtai to the southwest, Dongcheng, Xicheng and Haidian to the west, and ...
.


History

In the summer of 2012, Qihoo 360 entered the
smartphone A smartphone is a portable computer device that combines mobile telephone and computing functions into one unit. They are distinguished from feature phones by their stronger hardware capabilities and extensive mobile operating systems, whic ...
market by launching the Battleship phone together with the large Chinese electronics company
Haier Haier Group Corporation () is a Chinese multinational home appliances and consumer electronics company headquartered in Qingdao, Shandong. It designs, develops, manufactures and sells products including refrigerators, air conditioners, washin ...
. Qihoo 360 stated that Haier will provide the hardware while Qihoo 360 will focus on customising the software, albeit the main operating system will be Android. Qihoo 360 received over 220,000 pre-orders for the phone the first day. Later in 2012, Qihoo 360 launched the search engine so.com, thereby directly competing with
Baidu Baidu, Inc. ( ; , meaning "hundred times") is a Chinese multinational technology company specializing in Internet-related services and products and artificial intelligence (AI), headquartered in Beijing's Haidian District. It is one of the la ...
, the most prominent search engine in China. Qihoo's share of unique visitors grew to 10.52% of the total search engine market in China. "Sōu" (搜) in Chinese means "search". On July 18, 2013, Qihoo launched its second search engine, leidian.com, which aimed at increasing its presence in the mobile market. At the end of July 2013, Qihoo was in early talks to acquire
Sohu.com Sohu, Inc. () is a Chinese Internet company headquartered in the Sohu Internet Plaza in Haidian District, Beijing. Sohu and its subsidiaries offer advertising, a search engine (Sogou.com), on-line multiplayer gaming (ChangYou.com) and other se ...
’s Sogou.com search engine for around $1.4 billion. In early 2015, Qihoo rebranded its so.com search engine as haosou.com. "Hao" in Chinese means good; Haosou directly translated to English means "good search engine". In December 2013, the company increased its stake in the Brazilian tech company PSafe. On July 11, 2014, the company set up a
venture capital Venture capital (often abbreviated as VC) is a form of private equity financing that is provided by venture capital firms or funds to startups, early-stage, and emerging companies that have been deemed to have high growth potential or which ha ...
fund in
Silicon Valley Silicon Valley is a region in Northern California that serves as a global center for high technology and innovation. Located in the southern part of the San Francisco Bay Area, it corresponds roughly to the geographical areas San Mateo County ...
. On December 18, 2015, Qihoo 360 agreed to be acquired by a group of investors in a deal valued at about $9.3 billion. On July 15, 2016, Qihoo 360 announced the finalization of its take-private transaction. On July 18, 2016, Qihoo 360 bought most of
Opera Software Opera is a Norwegian multinational technology company and subsidiary of Kunlun that specializes in web browser development, fintech, as well as services such as Opera News and YoYo Games. The company's total user base, including users of its ...
for US$600 million. On 4 November 2016 Golden Brick Capital (Qihoo included) completed the acquisition.


U.S. sanctions

In May 2020, Qihoo 360 and other Chinese companies were placed on the
Bureau of Industry and Security The Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) is an agency of the United States Department of Commerce that deals with issues involving national security and high technology. A principal goal for the bureau is helping stop the proliferation of weapo ...
's
Entity List The Entity List is a trade restriction list published by the United States Department of Commerce's Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS), consisting of certain foreign persons, entities, or governments. Entities on the Entity List are subject to U ...
due to U.S. national security concerns. The U.S. accused Qihoo 360 and others of playing roles in the
crackdown Crackdown may refer to * ''Crackdown'' (web series) * ''Crackdown'' (video game series) ** ''Crackdown'' (video game) ** ''Crackdown 2 ''Crackdown 2'' is an open world action-adventure video game developed by Ruffian Games and published by ...
in
Xinjiang Xinjiang, SASM/GNC: ''Xinjang''; zh, c=, p=Xīnjiāng; formerly romanized as Sinkiang (, ), officially the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region (XUAR), is an autonomous region of the People's Republic of China (PRC), located in the northwest ...
by "enabling China’s high-technology surveillance" in Xinjiang. On 25 May, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman
Zhao Lijian Zhao Lijian (; born 10 November 1972) is a Chinese politician and the deputy director of the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs Information Department. He is the 31st spokesperson since the position was established in 1983. He joined the forei ...
strongly criticized the step, asking the US to "revoke the relevant decision and stop interfering in China’s internal affairs". In October 2022, the
United States Department of Defense The United States Department of Defense (DoD, USDOD or DOD) is an executive branch department of the federal government charged with coordinating and supervising all agencies and functions of the government directly related to national secu ...
added Qihoo 360 to a list of "Chinese military companies" operating in the U.S.


Reaction


Lawsuits

Qihoo has been described by
Forbes ''Forbes'' () is an American business magazine owned by Integrated Whale Media Investments and the Forbes family. Published eight times a year, it features articles on finance, industry, investing, and marketing topics. ''Forbes'' also re ...
as a confrontational and litigious company due to its involvement in various anti-competition lawsuits. The company was involved in lawsuits with
Tencent Tencent Holdings Ltd. () is a Chinese multinational technology and entertainment conglomerate and holding company headquartered in Shenzhen. It is one of the highest grossing multimedia companies in the world based on revenue. It is also the w ...
, starting with the
360 v. Tencent ''360 vs Tencent'' is a dispute between two Chinese IT companies, Tencent and Qihoo, over competition practices that has escalated in November 2010, and hundreds of millions of users were forced to choose sides in the dispute. It is the first ant ...
dispute, as well as other companies such as
Baidu Baidu, Inc. ( ; , meaning "hundred times") is a Chinese multinational technology company specializing in Internet-related services and products and artificial intelligence (AI), headquartered in Beijing's Haidian District. It is one of the la ...
, Emiage,
Sogou Sogou, Inc. () is a Chinese technology company that offers a search engine. It is a subsidiary of Tencent. The offices of Sogou are located on the southeast corner of Tsinghua University in Beijing. Sogou also has offices in Chengdu co-locate ...
.


Traffic data

The company has been accused by Anonymous of overstating the volume of traffic to its site to attract advertisers.


Antivirus test results

The antivirus testing companies AV-Comparatives of Austria, Germany's AV-Test, and Virus Bulletin of the UK have accused Qihoo of providing for testing its anti-virus equipped with a
Bitdefender Bitdefender is a Romanian cybersecurity technology company headquartered in Bucharest, Romania, with offices in the United States, Europe, Australia and the Middle East. The company was founded in 2001 by the current CEO and main shareholder, ...
engine, while the consumer version uses Qihoo's own QVM engine.


Certificates

According to documents released by the
Mozilla Corporation The Mozilla Corporation (stylized as moz://a) is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Mozilla Foundation that coordinates and integrates the development of Internet-related applications such as the Firefox web browser, by a global community of ope ...
in 2016, Qihoo appears to have acquired a controlling interest in the previously Israeli-run Certificate Authority " StartCom", through a chain of acquisitions, including the Chinese-owned company WoSign. WoSign also has a certificate authority business; WoSign has been accused of poor control and of misissuing certificates. Furthermore, Mozilla alleges that WoSign and StartCom violate their obligations as Certificate Authorities in respect of their failure to disclose the change in ownership of StartCom; Mozilla is threatening to take action, to protect their users. Google have stated that their Chrome product will no longer trust by default any certificates signed by StartCom or Wosign roots, starting with Chrome 61. Mozilla have stated that their
Firefox Mozilla Firefox, or simply Firefox, is a free and open-source web browser developed by the Mozilla Foundation and its subsidiary, the Mozilla Corporation. It uses the Gecko rendering engine to display web pages, which implements current and ...
product will no longer trust by default any certificates signed by StartCom or WoSign roots, starting with Firefox version 58.


Hidden backdoors

In 2012, a whistleblower reported a hidden backdoor in 360 Secure Browser. The Product Director of 360 Secure Browser, Tao Weihua, responded that "Whoever has a mind to beat a dog will always be able to find a stick" and accused the whistleblower of "smearing 360 on behalf of Baidu", which the whistleblower said was "the worst professional response in history". Independent analysis of the claim showed that the browser has an "undeclared mechanism (i.e., via ExtSmartWiz.dll) which regularly connects to the server (e.g., every 5 minutes), and allows it to download files of any type (including executables) from the server." In October 2020,
Mnemonic A mnemonic ( ) device, or memory device, is any learning technique that aids information retention or retrieval (remembering) in the human memory for better understanding. Mnemonics make use of elaborative encoding, retrieval cues, and imag ...
reported the existence of a backdoor affecting a line of children's watches under the Xplora brand manufactured by Qihoo.


Widespread streaming webcasts of security footage in China

In December 2017, the Chinese Government acted to curtail the widespread webcasting of live security-company-cameras, private webcams, and
IP camera An Internet Protocol camera, or IP camera, is a type of digital video camera that receives control data and sends image data via an IP network. They are commonly used for surveillance, but, unlike analog closed-circuit television (CCTV) cameras, ...
footage, voicing concerns of violations of privacy and portrait rights, sanctioning Qihoo.


Samsung spyware

In January 2020, a
Reddit Reddit (; stylized in all lowercase as reddit) is an American social news aggregation, content rating, and discussion website. Registered users (commonly referred to as "Redditors") submit content to the site such as links, text posts, images ...
user reported ''Qihoo'''s presence in
Samsung The Samsung Group (or simply Samsung) ( ko, 삼성 ) is a South Korean multinational manufacturing conglomerate headquartered in Samsung Town, Seoul, South Korea. It comprises numerous affiliated businesses, most of them united under the ...
mobile phones as a pre-installed storage cleaner in the device settings, from where it sends data packages to Chinese servers. The user could not identify which information is sent specifically, but the post was drawing enough attention to trend on
Reddit Reddit (; stylized in all lowercase as reddit) is an American social news aggregation, content rating, and discussion website. Registered users (commonly referred to as "Redditors") submit content to the site such as links, text posts, images ...
's front page for a while. Later,
Samsung The Samsung Group (or simply Samsung) ( ko, 삼성 ) is a South Korean multinational manufacturing conglomerate headquartered in Samsung Town, Seoul, South Korea. It comprises numerous affiliated businesses, most of them united under the ...
representative declared that the only data sent back to Qihoo is generic information needed to optimize storage — specifically naming OS version, phone model, and storage capacity, among other data. Qihoo's main contribution is a reference library for identifying junk files, but that library is stored locally in the utility, and Qihoo never receives data that would allow it to identify a particular file on a user's device.


References


External links

* {{Antivirus software Companies formerly listed on the New York Stock Exchange Companies listed on the Shanghai Stock Exchange Computer security software companies Software companies based in Beijing Chinese companies established in 2005 Software companies established in 2005 Chinese brands Chaoyang District, Beijing 2011 initial public offerings 2016 mergers and acquisitions