Patent ID: 8726391

Claim:
A computer-implemented method of retrieving a set of malware signatures comprising: receiving, at a client, client safety scores from a set of peer clients associated with the client, a client safety score for a peer client having a value indicating a mode of operation associated with the peer client, the value normalized as a ratio of a number of malware threat detections on the peer client to a number of software applications found on the peer client; calculating, by the client, an environmental safety score associated with the client based, at least in part, on the client safety scores received from the set of peer clients, wherein the environmental safety score indicates a likelihood that the client is exposed to malware threats; identifying a plurality of different time intervals respectively associated with a plurality of different environmental safety scores; selecting a time interval of the plurality of different time intervals associated with the calculated environmental safety score; retrieving a set of malware signatures from a server at a time determined responsive to the environmental safety score and the selected time interval; and storing the set of malware signatures.