

The primary risk in using Rapid Release virus definitions, although a relatively small risk, is potential false positive detections on a limited number of legitimate files. They are passed through a somewhat lesser degree of testing than fully certified virus definitions, but they still maintain a relatively high level of quality. Rapid Release virus definitions are released slightly more than once per hour and are optimized for rapid deployment within an organization during a threat outbreak. Intelligent Updater Definitions can be obtained here: The Intelligent Updater is an alternate delivery method for certified daily definitions. Intelligent Updater (IU) virus definitions are a batch of the Rapid Release virus definitions that have undergone full QA testing and certification. Given the large number of threats analyzed by Symantec Security Response each day, Symantec suggests that customers update their antivirus detection signatures at least once per day.

On mail security and other products at the enterprise's perimeter, it may be recommended to use Rapid Release definitions (see below) to ensure that protection is available against the very latest threats in circulation rather than rely upon the once-per-day Certified Daily LiveUpdate.Ĭertified Weekly LiveUpdate is published once per week and is considered a legacy level of support and therefore provides a lesser degree of protection compared with the daily and multiple daily frequencies. Many other Symantec products also use these daily certified updates. Other products may update less frequently.Ĭertified Daily LiveUpdate is published once per day and offers a high level of protection from fast moving threats. These definitions are often referred to as MDD (Multiple Daily Definitions.) Customers using Symantec Endpoint Protection (SEP) can take advantage of this highest frequency of delivery. There are several types of definitions which are Certified:Ĭertified Multiple Daily LiveUpdate is published three times a day except weekend and US holiday and offers the best protection from fast moving threats.

See the section below on Rapid Release virus definitions for a more complete explanation of this additional delivery option. Testing also includes an equally large set of clean files to ensure the avoidance of false positive (FP) detections.Ĭertified virus definitions are optimized for quality, compared with Rapid Release virus definitions, which are optimized for high frequency deployment to customers. The testing includes a large corpus of threat samples to ensure comprehensive detection. Certified sets of virus definitions are fully tested and certified by Quality Assurance (QA) on all supported Symantec security products across all operating systems currently supported by Symantec.
