Symantec Antivirus Virus Protection Check Status Message: Are You at Risk & How to Fix

Symantec Antivirus Virus Protection Check Status Message: Are You at Risk & How to Fix
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Status of Symantec Antivirus or Norton Antivirus

Symantec Antivirus for home users is called Norton Antivirus while business users have Symantec Endpoint Protection security as antivirus protection. Both editions provide a Symantec antivirus virus protection status. It is important that the antivirus programs in any computers, at home or a network, are protecting and securing the PC from viruses or any type of malware attacks, including intrusions.

The image at the left displays a Symantec antivirus virus protection check status as “secure” which is what end-users or business customers of Symantec should find. However, if the status requires attention or is at risk, it means that there is a problem with the Norton or Symantec antivirus settings, a protection has been disabled, or the product is not up-to-date, or has expired.

Status of Symantec or Norton Antivirus

If the status of Symantec or Norton antivirus shows an “Attention,” you should

Symantec antivirus virus protection check status: Attention

immediately check the cause. The image at right is an example of when Symantec antivirus virus protection requires attention because the email protection has been disabled. It does not mean that your computer is at risk from viruses, Trojans, worms, spyware, adware or other types of malware, but does mean the protection by Symantec to scan incoming and outgoing emails will not be scanned for malicious codes within the messages or the email attachments.

This type of problem on Norton’s security status is easy to fix. Manually enabling any disabled protection should bring back the “Secure” status message, or by clicking on the “Fix” button to automate the process of enabling the protection offered by Symantec.

The image below is another example where a computer can be “At risk,” because one of the important protection modules in the Symantec product that protects the computer against malware, has been disabled:

Symantec antivirus virus protection check status: At risk

This can be fixed as well by enabling the disabled protection. However, if enabling the protection continues to display a “At risk” or “Attention” status in the Norton antivirus program, the user needs to try and restart the computer and then check the product’s security center status again.

What to Do if the Symantec Antivirus Virus Protection Check Status Is Still Problematic

In most cases, a PC restart should resolve or refresh the status of Norton or Symantec antivirus, but if the problem continues, the product includes an interactive support module to automate a fix. In the Norton product, you can click the Support > Get Support from the user interface and it will open the integrated and interactive support options. This is called One Click Support and it will autofix any problems in Norton products e.g. corrupted or damaged installation, corrupted virus definitions, expired subscription and/or activation issues:

Symantec antivirus virus protection check status: One Click Support

If a PC restart and autofix session using Norton One Click Support has failed to resolve the problem, the user may need to contact Symantec support using the same option by clicking the “Continue” button in the Norton One Click Support in order to start using the interactive troubleshooter, or by contacting Symantec technical support directly. If the troubleshooter has detected problems in Symantec antivirus program, there will be resolutions for each problem:

Symantec antivirus virus protection check status

If the PC is at risk and the Symantec product has been disabled by virus or malware, you have to disinfect the computer before you can fix the security status of Norton.

Image credit: Screenshot taken by the author.