Protecting your router is essential to shield your wireless connection and prevent your Wifi from being stolen, but also to prevent new cyberattacks that, using it as a gateway, can access your personal data. Do you know how to protect your router from malware and detect if someone steals your Wifi? Follow these cybersecurity keys.
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Protecting your router is essential to avoid malware
The latest cyber-attacks have highlighted the importance of protecting your router to prevent cybercriminals from accessing your Wi-Fi network and, with it, your personal data. The latest alert was launched due to the VPNFilter malware that according to the first data, could have infected more than half a million routers worldwide.
It is not the first time that you have been alerted to the importance of protecting your router. At the end of last year, a major vulnerability in the WPA2 protocol endangered millions of wireless connections and forced to accelerate the implementation process of the new WPA3 protocol, which will be essential to protect your Wifi.
Protecting your router is an essential step to shield your Wifi connection (and with it your data) and this subject is still pending.
Security keys to protect your router
Do you know how to access your router to improve its security? Do you periodically renew your access passwords? If the answer is ‘No’, you are exposed to a cyber-attack or someone can remotely access your connection and steal your Wi-Fi. Avoid it with these keys to protect your router :
1- Change the factory settings of your router
The first step to protect your router is to access it and change the factory settings. It is important to do so because, in this way, we will be adding our own passwords and security settings
2- Periodically renew the security key of your router
Now that you know how to access your router in Windows, as in devices with IOS operating system, it is necessary that you personalize the name of your Wi-Fi network and that you change the password to access the router for a security key of guarantees. Do you know how to create strong passwords and what are the new rules for creating them? In the same way, all the experts recommend renewing the access codes to your router and your Wi-Fi network periodically to avoid problems with your cybersecurity.
3- Choose strong encryption for your Wifi network
In the configuration tab of your router, you can access options such as choosing the security encryption that will protect your Wi-Fi network. The normal thing is that by default WPA2 is selected, although it is convenient to make sure and choose only and exclusively this encryption to protect your router. Waiting for the WPA3 protocol to arrive, this is the safest option and, of course, avoid other encryption such as WEP because you would be putting your router at risk.
4- Identify which devices connect to your router
How many devices connect to your Wifi network? Do you know how to identify them to prevent them from stealing your Wi-Fi network or to prevent other computers from accessing your network? Each device (whether fixed or mobile) has an identification that allows you to know who is connected to your connection at any time, something that will allow you to protect your router from unauthorized access.
5- Create networks for guests or independent with the router
How many people have access to your Wifi keys? A good way to protect your router is the option of creating guest networks that will access a separate password from the rest of the equipment or devices that usually connect to your router (yours or those of your family members).
6- Attentive to security updates
One of the basic rules to protect your router is to always keep it updated. As with your computer or mobile devices, your router has its own operating system and it is common that, in the face of security threats or cyberattacks, updates and security patches are announced that will prevent it from being vulnerable.
7- Activate only the options you use
You do not have to be an expert to protect your router and access the options of your configuration that allow you to disable those ports that are in use and do not use or options such as remote access to the administration of your Wi-Fi network that can be the gateway for access by cybercriminals.
5- Create networks for guests or independent with the router
How many people have access to your Wifi keys? A good way to protect your router is the option of creating guest networks that will access a separate password from the rest of the equipment or devices that usually connect to your router (yours or those of your family members). To create guest networks to protect your router, follow these steps.
6- Attentive to security updates
One of the basic rules to protect your router is to always keep it updated. As with your computer or mobile devices, your router has its own operating system and it is common that, in the face of security threats or cyberattacks, updates and security patches are announced that will prevent it from being vulnerable. Follow these steps to update the firmware of your router and do it regularly.
7- Activate only the options you use
You do not have to be an expert to protect your router and access the options of your configuration that allow you to disable those ports that are in use and do not use or options such as remote access to the administration of your Wi-Fi network that can be the gateway for access by cybercriminals.
How to detect if someone steals your Wifi
Directly related to the need to protect your router is solving the question that we have all asked ourselves at some point: How to know if someone steals your Wifi? The first step to avoid this is, as it cannot be otherwise, to have a good security key, to have properly configured your router to prevent third-party access, to have the MAC address of the connected devices controlled …
Despite this, no one is safe from third-party access to their connection. Do you suspect someone? A very simple way to check it is to disconnect all the devices that use it and, in case you see that the lights of your router keep flashing, it is very possible that you have a stranger in your Wifi.
If you want to detect strangers on your Wifi from your mobile device, you have applications such as Fing or NetScan for Android devices or IP Network Scanner or iNet Network Scanner if you have an iPhone or iPad and you want to detect strangers on your Wifi.
These are just some examples that will help you to know if someone steals your Wifi, but as we have indicated in this post, the first step to avoid it is to protect your router and configure it in the most restrictive way possible to avoid malware and user access not authorized to your Wifi network. On the Internet, the best security system is you.
