How Secure Your WIFI At Home
As technology is evolving, it’s crucial to secure your WIFI at home to protect your data and privacy. Nowadays, WIFI hacking has become more common than ever, and it can happen even in a residential area. When an attacker gains access to your WIFI, they can use your internet connection for illegal activities, steal your personal and financial information, or even hijack your network for more criminal activities.
Fortunately, securing your WIFI is not a challenging task. In this blog post, we’ll discuss some of the steps you can take to secure your WIFI at home.
1. Change the default login credentials
When you install a new WIFI router, it comes with default login credentials that anyone can easily find online. Therefore, the first thing you should do is change the default username, password, and SSID (Service Set Identifier). A strong password should include a mix of uppercase and lowercase letters, numbers, and special characters. Also, make sure to change your WIFI SSID to something that doesn’t include any identifiable information such as your name or address.
2. Enable WPA2 encryption
Encryption is a method used to protect your data by encoding it into an unreadable form, and WPA2 is the latest encryption standard. Enabling WPA2 encryption on your WIFI router will ensure that only authorized devices can connect to your network. To enable this encryption, log in to your router’s dashboard, go to the security tab, and select WPA2 as your encryption mode.
3. Don’t broadcast your SSID
Your WIFI network name (SSID) is visible to anyone within range of your WIFI signal. If you don’t broadcast your SSID, your network will not appear in the list of available networks when someone scans for WIFI networks. This means that someone would need to know the name of your network to connect to it. To stop broadcasting your SSID, log in to your router’s dashboard and look for “SSID Broadcast” settings. Disable this option, and your network will no longer be visible.
4. Use a Firewall
A Firewall is software that blocks unauthorized access to your network and protects your network from malicious traffic. If your router doesn’t have a built-in firewall, you can install free or paid third-party firewalls. Some of the popular firewalls are Bitdefender, Norton, and McAfee.
5. Use Guest Network
If you frequently have guests over, you might want to create a separate network for them. A guest network allows visitors to access the internet without giving them access to your main network. Thus, it will keep your private devices safe from any potential harm. Most modern routers come with this feature, and you can create and customize the guest network from your router’s dashboard.
6. Enable MAC Address Filtering
Using MAC filtering will restrict access to your WIFI network only to specific devices. Every network device has a unique MAC address, and you can add the MAC addresses of your devices that you want to allow to your router. To enable this feature, go to your router’s dashboard and find the MAC filtering or Access Control settings. Add the MAC of every device you want to allow and save the changes.
7. Keep your Router’s Firmware Updated
Like software, router’s firmware also needs to be updated to be more secure. If your router is outdated, it may have security vulnerabilities that hackers can exploit. To keep your router firmware up-to-date, log in to your router’s dashboard and look for the firmware update option. If there is a new update available, download and install it.
Conclusion
Securing your WIFI at home is essential to protect your privacy and data. Following the above-mentioned tips will ensure that your network is secure. Keep your WIFI login credentials strong and maintain regular updates to your router’s firmware to stay secure. With these steps, you can greatly reduce the risk of cyber-attacks on your network.