Virus definitions are not updating on Messaging Gateway

Products

• Messaging Gateway
• Messaging Gateway for Service Providers

Issue/Introduction

The Messaging Gateway status Dashboard shows that Virus definitions are out of date and alerts are being sent warning that malware definitions are not updated.

Environment

• Product: Messaging Gateway
• Version: All
• Service: Anti-virus

Cause

Usually this issue is the result of network connection failures between the Messaging Gateway scanner and the Broadcom Live Update servers at https://liveupdate.symantec.com.

Resolution

Issues with malware definitions updating are usually related to network related circumstances. To better understand what is happening, first please confirm what scanners are having the issue:

1. Click on Status.
2. Click on Hosts in the left pane.
3. Click on the Software and Services tab.
4. Review the Virus Definitions column to determine which scanners are out of date.

Checking network connectivity to the Liveupdate servers

1. Log into the SMG scanner command line as 'admin'
2. Run the following command to manually connect to the liveupdate servers
   curl https://liveupdate.symantec.com

A successful connection should appear as follows:

curl https://liveupdate.symantec.com
* Trying 162.159.140.167:443...
* Connected to liveupdate.symantec.com (162.159.140.167) port 443 (#0)
* Server certificate:
...
* subject: C=US; ST=California; L=Palo Alto; O=Broadcom Inc.; CN=liveupdate.symantec.com
* start date: Mar 10 00:00:00 2026 GMT
* expire date: Sep 24 23:59:59 2026 GMT
* issuer: C=US; O=DigiCert Inc; CN=DigiCert Global G2 TLS RSA SHA256 2020 CA1
* SSL certificate verify ok.

If the connection cannot be established or the certificate is not from CN=liveupdate.symantec.com then a problem exists in the network connection path and should be investigated by the network / firewall administration team. 

Additional Information

• Ports and hostnames used by Messaging Gateway