Symantec’s Endpoint Protection Manager has been hit by a classic date bug and fell over at the end of the year, accepting no definition updates dated since then.

Symantec have issued a statement, which states that: “An issue has been identified in the Symantec Endpoint Protection Manager (SEPM) server whereby all types of SEP definition content [AV/AS, IPS] with a date greater than December 31, 2009 11:59pm are considered to be ‘out of date’.”

Until the bug is fixed, Symantec has a bandaid strategy: “Symantec Response will continue to publish Symantec Endpoint Protection antivirus and other definitions with the date 12/31/2009, and will only increase the revision number of the definition. More specifically the last certified definitions that was published on December 31, 2009 was “12/31/2009 rev. 041” version. The next certified definitions to be published will have a revision number greater than 041.”

Symantec assures customers that: “there are no changes that a customer administrator needs to apply in order for the above mitigation to be successful.”

Read more here.