ClamAV 0.94.x to go end-of-life - Update

The ClamAV developers have announced that the 15th of April 2010 will be the end-of-life (EOL) date for all versions up to 0.94.x of their free open source anti-virus program. The reason for the change is that releases older than 0.95 are affected by a bug in freshclam, the ClamAV utility used to download new virus definitions. The bug prevents incremental updates from working with signatures that are longer than 980 bytes. The developers note that they haven't yet released any signatures that exceed the limit.

On the 15th of April, the ClamAV Virus Database (CVD) will contain a special signature that disables all installations older than 0.95. According to the developers, the "move is needed to push more people to upgrade to 0.95". The developers plan to start releasing signatures that exceed the 980 bytes limit in May of 2010.

The latest stable release of ClamAV is 0.95.2. Users interested in keeping up with the latest ClamAV developments and new signatures can follow them on Twitter.

Update - It has been pointed out that it may not be very easy for all users to upgrade to the latest release. Ubuntu 8.04 LTS, for example, includes version 0.94 of ClamAV. The H contacted Ubuntu about the situation and was advised that the Ubuntu team "are aware of the end-of-life of Clam AV". According to Gerry Carr from Canonical, ClamAV 0.95 will be made available for all 8.04 LTS users. Carr says that more details will be posted to the Ubuntu Security Announcements mailing list.

(crve)