# Updating the GuardDuty security agent for Amazon EC2 instance manually
Updating security agent manually

GuardDuty releases updates to the security agent versions. When you manage the security agent manually, you're responsible to update the agent for your Amazon EC2 instances. For information about new agent versions, see [GuardDuty security agent release versions](runtime-monitoring-agent-release-history.md) for Amazon EC2 instances. To receive notifications about a new agent version release, see [Subscribing to Amazon SNS GuardDuty announcements](guardduty_sns.md).

**To update the security agent for Amazon EC2 instance manually**  
The process to update the security agent is the same as installing the security agent. Depending on the method that you used to install the agent, you can perform the steps in [Installing the security agent manually](installing-gdu-security-agent-ec2-manually.md) for Amazon EC2 instances.  
If you use [Method 1 - By using AWS Systems Manager](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/guardduty/latest/ug/managing-gdu-agent-ec2-manually.html#manage-ssm-ec2-instance-runtime-monitoring), then you can update the security agent by using the **Run command**. Use the agent version to which you want to update.  
If you use [Method 2 - By using Linux Package Managers](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/guardduty/latest/ug/managing-gdu-agent-ec2-manually.html#heading:r2l:), you can use the scripts as specified in the [Installing the security agent manually](installing-gdu-security-agent-ec2-manually.md) section. The scripts already include the latest agent release version. For information about recently released agent versions, see [GuardDuty security agent versions for Amazon EC2 instances](runtime-monitoring-agent-release-history.md#ec2-gdu-agent-release-history).

After you update the security agent, you can check the installation status by looking at the logs. For more information, see [Validating GuardDuty security agent installation status](installing-gdu-security-agent-ec2-manually.md#validate-ec2-gdu-agent-installation-healthy).