Databases of the Anti-Virus, Anti-Spam, and Anti-Phishing modules (hereafter also referred to as "databases") are files containing records that can be used to detect malicious code in scanned objects. These records contain information about the control sections of malicious code and algorithms used for disinfecting objects that contain such threats.
Virus analysts at Kaspersky Lab detect hundreds of new threats daily, create records to identify them, and include them in database updates packages (or update packages). Update packages consist of one or several files containing records to identify threats that were detected since the previous update package was released. In order to minimize the risk of infecting the protected mail server, we recommend that you receive database update packages regularly.
As long as the license is in effect, you can receive database update packages from Kaspersky Lab's website automatically on schedule, or download and install them manually.
During installation, Kaspersky Secure Mail Gateway downloads the latest databases from one of Kaspersky Lab's update servers. If you have configured automatic database updates, Kaspersky Secure Mail Gateway runs updates according to schedule (with a frequency of once per 5 minutes).
Kaspersky Secure Mail Gateway periodically and automatically checks for new update packages on Kaspersky Lab's update servers. By default, if the Kaspersky Secure Mail Gateway anti-virus databases have not been updated within 24 hours or the Anti-Spam databases have not been updated within an hour since Kaspersky Lab released the latest updates, Kaspersky Secure Mail Gateway logs the event Databases are out of date into the event log. If the anti-virus databases have not been updated within a week, or the Anti-Spam databases have not been updated within 24 hours, Kaspersky Secure Mail Gateway logs the event Databases are obsolete. You can configure administrator notifications about these events.