About upgrades | Trend Micro Service Central

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Types of updates from Trend Micro include:

Software upgrades: New software such as the agent and relay.
Security updates: Rules and malware patterns that agent software uses to identify potential threats. Types of security updates include:
- Pattern updates: Used by Anti-Malware
- Rule updates: Used by:
  - Firewall
  - Intrusion Prevention
  - Integrity Monitoring
  - Log Inspection

(Application Control rule updates are created locally, based on your computers' software. They are not from Trend Micro.)

Trend Micro releases new rule updates every Tuesday, with additional updates as new threats are discovered. Information about the updates is available in the Trend Micro Threat Encyclopedia.

How Server & Workload Protection checks for software upgrades

Updated agent software packages are automatically imported into Server & Workload Protection and appear on Administration → Updates → Software → Local.

Note

Server & Workload Protection will only inform you of minor version updates (not major) of software. For example, if you have agent version 9.6.100, and Trend Micro releases 9.6.200, an alert will tell you that software updates are available. However, if 10.0.xxx (a major version difference) is released and you don't have any 10.0 agents, the alert will not appear (even though 10.0 is newer than 9.6.100).

Best practices for upgrades

When deploying a new release of the agent:

Relays must be the same version or newer than all agents in your environment. The relays provided as part of Server & Workload Protection are kept up to date and compatible with the latest available agents. However, if you have deployed your own relays, always upgrade them before upgrading your agents.
Server & Workload Protection customers can ignore the Minimum DSM Version for agents. We host and update the manager as part of the service, and it is always compatible with the latest available agents.

How Server & Workload Protection validates update integrity

Both software updates and security updates are digitally signed. In addition to automatic checks, if you want to manually validate the signatures or checksums, you can use external tools such as:

sha256sum (Linux)
Checksum Calculator (Windows)
jarsigner (Java Development Kit (JDK); see Check digital signatures on software packages)

Digital signatures

When security updates are viewed or used, Server & Workload Protection validates the signature. A correct digital signature indicates that the software is authentically from Trend Micro and hasn't been corrupted or tampered with. If the digital signature is invalid, Server & Workload Protection does not use the file. A warning is also recorded in log files such as server0.log:

WARNING: ThID:85|TID:0|TNAME:Primary|UID:1|UNAME:MasterAdmin|Verifying the signature
                     failed.

com.thirdbrigade.manager.core.general.exceptions.FileNotSignedValidationException:
                     "corrupted_rules.zip." has not been digitally signed by Trend Micro and cannot be
                     imported.

The agent also validates the digital signature, compares checksums (sometimes called hashes or fingerprints) and uses other, non-disclosed integrity methods.

Checksums

Software checksums (also called hashes or fingerprints) are published on the Download Center. To view the SHA-256 hash, click the + button next to the software's name.