Your McAfee software reports critical protection problems as soon as it detects them. When a critical protection problem is detected, a notification is displayed in the protection status area on the McAfee Home Page.
Critical protection problems are directly related to the critical protection features: Real-Time Scanning, Updates, Personal Firewall, and Subscription. If a critical protection problem occurs, it compromises your PC's security and changes the protection status to "at risk" until you fix the problem.