How to Disable CenturyLink McAfee Cyber Security Warnings

Many CenturyLink users have discovered that attempting to visit certain web pages and websites leads to a giant McAfee cyber security “warning” message that says something to the effect of “Warning! (website URL) appears to be risky. This might be because it is new or may not have the latest security.” or “Warning! This site has been flagged as malicious. Visiting this site may expose your device to malware or hijacking, allowing theft of private information.” or a variation of a similar error message.

You have the option to click “Continue to Site”, but what if you trust the sites, or if you just don’t want CenturyLink determining which sites are ‘safe’ for you to visit, and want to do away with the CenturyLink warnings for some web sites? If you’re an advanced user, you may be interested in turning this feature off and disabling the cyber security warnings from the router.

This tutorial will walk through how to turn off the CenturyLink McAfee Cyber Security feature and all related warnings.

The Cyber Security feature is enabled by default on most CenturyLink accounts and routers, thus this must be turned off manually.

How to Turn Off CenturyLink Site Warnings Cyber Security Feature

We are going to assume your CenturyLink modem/router is on the network at IP 192.168.0.1, if it’s another IP address then you will need to choose that instead.

The router IP address and admin login information should be located on the physical CenturyLink modem or router, either on the bottom or on a sticker on the hardware.

1. Open a web browser and go to https://192.168.0.1/
2. Login to the CenturyLink modem/router with the admin login (these details should be located on the physical modem/router itself)
3. From the left side menu bar look for “Advanced Setup” or “Security”
4. Choose “Cyber Security”
5. Locate the Cyber Security setting and choose to disable it from the drop down menu *
6. Save changes and exit out of the CenturyLink router **

You should now be able to browse the web, any of the web, without having the CenturyLink cyber security warnings popping up on various URLs.

Some users have found the “warning” messages from CenturyLink cyber security appear erroneously on sites that are valid and not risky, but merely related to topics or subjects that are less mainstream or somewhat controversial. Additionally, sometimes the site warnings appear on sites experiencing certificate issues, which may also show up as “connection not private” errors in Safari for other users (certificate issues are most often on the website server end, not the users end, but can also show up if the users device clock is inaccurate). And of course the warnings do popup on legitimately sketchy sites too. But if you’re pretty confident in your ability to determine sketchy from not, you may be interested in turning the cybersecurity feature off if you keep running into it.

The CenturyLink Cyber Security McAfee warnings may vary in appearance depending on what device you are using, but generally look something like the following:

“Warning! This site has been flagged as malicious. Visiting this site may expose your device to malware or hijacking, allowing theft of private information.”

Or of this variety; “Warning! (website URL) appears to be risky. This might be because it is new or may not have the latest security.”

This tip idea comes to us from a reader who contacted us assuming that somehow McAfee antivirus software got installed onto their Mac and iPad, which they found curious when they have never downloaded or installed any McAfee security software to any device. After some back and forth and exploring the issue, we realized the website warnings and filtering was actually coming from their CenturyLink modem, which bundles the McAfee cyber security service feature and enables it by default. This service likely prevents some malware (particularly on Windows PCs where there is a greater risk), but it can also erroneously flag some sites as problematic or unsafe. Thus, for advanced users who are comfortable determining what is safe on the web at their own discretion, turning this feature off may be desirable.

* Important Note: for some CenturyLink modems, the only options for disabling Cyber Security are to turn it off until the modem / router restarts, or turns off and back on again. If that is the option you have on your modem, you’ll need to remember to manually turn this feature off every time you restart the modem, there’s a power outage, or the modem/router is unplugged for any reason.

** Some CenturyLink modems/routers have a slightly different arrangement for settings, depending on the modem, firmware, service, etc, but generally speaking you’re always looking for the “Security” or “Cyber Security” related feature.