A system and method for distributing portable computer virus definition records with binary file conversion are described. One or more virus definition records are stored into a structured virus database. Each virus definition record includes an identifier uniquely identifying a computer virus, at least one virus name associated with the computer virus, a virus definition sentence comprising object code providing operations to detect the identified computer virus within a computer system, and a virus removal sentence comprising object code providing operations to clean the identified computer virus from the computer system. At least one updated virus definition record is stored into the structured virus database indexed by the identifier and the at least one virus name for each virus definition record. The virus definition records stored in the structured virus database are converted into a virus data file. The virus data file includes virus definition sets. Each virus definition set includes binary data encoding instructions to detect the computer virus within a computer system, instructions to clean the computer virus from the computer system, and names associated with the computer virus.