Symantec Protection Engine (SPE) process crashes with Rapid Release (RR) definitions (version 20160418.022)

Products

• Protection Engine for Cloud Services
• Protection Engine for NAS

Issue/Introduction

SPE process(symcscan daemon started crashing in environment where AntiVirus definition is updated with RR 20160418.022 & greater). 

Cause

The crashing issue is caused by a heap buffer overrun in the handling of macros inside (AntiVirus Engine) AVE’s Macro engine.  

Resolution

Symantec is aware of this issue and will update this document when a solution becomes available. It may not be necessary to log a support case on this issue. Please subscribe to this article to be notified of any updates.

Workaround: 

Symantec has released rapid release definition to mitigate the issue. Rapid Release Sequence 176535 extended version 19^th April 2016 rev 36 (or higher) will include the fix.