Keeping the Hackers at Bay: 8 Things You Can Do to Make Your Home Wifi Safer

Keeping the Hackers at Bay 8 Things You Can Do to Make Your Home Wifi Safer from North Carolina Lifestyle Blogger Adventures of Frugal Mom

Setting up your home wifi should be as easy as cake. At least, if you know what you’re doing. But do you really want to pay someone else to do it for you? That could mean more money in your pocket to spend on other things.

The big problem with people setting up their own home wifi is that they’re not aware of all the security risks they may be exposing themselves to. And hackers don’t care about being nice to those who don’t understand. So instead of leaving your wifi up to chance, here are eight steps you can take to ensuring the safety of your wifi.

1. Secure your Wifi Network

The limits of your wifi network don’t stop at your boundary line. Close neighbors and people parked on the street can still access your network if they really want to. That means that they can connect to it and have access to the contents of your computer or any device that’s running on the wifi.

The best thing you can do is ensure it’s protected by a WPA password so that only those who know the password can have access. Also, change the name of your network; the default name can give away the make and model of your router, making it easy for hackers to get in.

2. Change the Router Admin Password

Every router is given a default password that you use to access the admin controls when you’re setting up the network. What you may not know is that this default can be the same for every router in that product line, meaning that anyone who knows the default can get into your system. Change this password at the same time you’re setting up the network to avoid a hacker getting into your system.

3. Separate Network for Guests

If you want to be really secure, you could have a separate network for guests who enter your home that don’t require a password. However, don’t connect any devices to this network if you want to keep them safe. This saves you the hassle of having to tell guests the password of your home and then making it easier for them to give it to someone else.

But even guest networks should have WPA protection as well so that you can control who is having access to your network. Provide them with a password and change it often after guests leave. It may seem like a hassle, but it will keep your system more secure in the long run.

4. Disable WPS and UPnP

WPS stands for Wireless Protected Setup and is intended to make it easier to connect to any wifi, either by pressing the WPS button or entering a PIN. But it’s actually pretty easy to hack with the right tools. The best way to make it harder is to disable WPS altogether.

UPnP stands for Universal Plug and Play, which allows the software to connect to the outside world without you having to do anything. But this makes it easier for hackers to invade it with malware and wreck your system.

If you’d like to see whether these systems are disabled or not on your network, you might want to check out this audit.

5. Keep Firmware Up-To-Date

In order to maintain protection against future security threats, it’s a good idea to keep your router’s operating system updated on a regular basis. Hackers are always looking for ways to manipulate the system, so don’t give them that opportunity. By installing new firmware, you’re constantly making it difficult for them to find a way in. Visit the manufacturer’s site at least once a month to see if there are any updates you should download.

6. Upgrade

It could be that your router’s just too old and doesn’t offer any of the features of newer models. Upgrades just aren’t going to work so you might have to invest in getting a new router altogether. A new router will have better security features, a larger wifi range, and faster speeds.

Working through an Internet Service Provider, they’ll usually allow you to replace your old device with a new one. If they don’t supply one, ask if there is a newer router available as a package upgrade. You may have to pay a small fee, unless the router is faulty or not secure at all.

7. Set Up a Firewall

Firewalls serve as the first line of defense against attacks on your network. The majority of routers have firewalls built in and check data coming in and out of the network, flagging the ones that read as suspicious. The defaults alone do a decent job, but they can always be improved upon by changing a few settings.

Not only do they determine the source and destination addresses of data coming in, but they can also determine which packets are legitimate or not so that they can be allowed or discarded. In addition, they can also tell which applications are being used so that the data it receives or sends can be allowed or blocked. When it isn’t sure about a particular program, it can generate a message asking the user to make that determination to admit or block data.

Not only do they determine the source and destination addresses of data coming in, but they can also determine which packets are legitimate or not so that they can be allowed or discarded. In addition, they can also tell which applications are being used so that the data it receives or sends can be allowed or blocked. When it isn’t sure about a particular program, it can generate a message asking the user to make that determination to admit or block data.

8. Using a VPN

VPN stands for Virtual Private Network and can provide you with the safety you need to remain secure in all your online transactions and interactions. All of the data on your devices are kept private through the process of encryption. So even if hackers did manage to get into your system, they still wouldn’t be able to do any harm to your systems because they wouldn’t know how to make sense of it.

Keeping your home wifi safe and secure will ensure that your data remains where it is and that your system isn’t open for just anyone to use your data. Exercise caution, keep your software and hardware updated and minimize the number of people who know the password for your network.

Similar Posts:

    None Found

Similar Posts

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.