Today the vast majority of ADSL users have a Wi-Fi router that allows users to connect to the Internet wirelessly. This, although it has its advantages, also has disadvantages such as the ease with which hackers have access to our connection, our network and even if we are not properly protected, to our computers and shared resources.
The configuration that comes by default with the routers is practical to start working as soon as possible but it is far from being considered safe.
If we want to be able to use our Wi-Fi connection safely and avoid being hacked into, we can take a few small steps to make it harder for hackers to access it.
Change the WiFi password
Routers usually come by default with a rather weak and easy to exploit password. Along with this, multiple vulnerabilities that have been discovered in routers have allowed hackers to create dictionaries that simply entering the name of the WiFi network will return the default password of said router.
It is very important to change the default password of our routers to prevent hackers from gaining access to them and compromising our security.
In the following article we can see the different types of security and encryption that we can enable.
Change the router's administration password
Most routers are managed through a small web server that we access by typing our gateway in a web browser (by default in most cases 192.168.1.1).
It is advisable to change the access password so that if someone unwanted gets access to our Wi-Fi network, it is not possible to access this configuration panel and modify parameters at their ease
Enable MAC filtering
We can configure the MAC filtering of the router in 2 different ways:
- Block specified MAC addresses
- Allow only specified MAC connections
As each device has a unique personal and non-transferable MAC address (although they can be impersonated and modified), a very effective security measure is to apply MAC filtering only to manually assigned IP addresses, introducing ours on the router so that any other device that tries to connect can not do it.
Disable DHCP
By default the routers come with a DHCP server to assign IP addresses automatically. If an unauthorized person connects to our network you will most likely try to obtain a valid IP address from this server.
If we disable the DHCP server, the user that connects will have to assign a valid IP address that allows to have a connection in the network, which complicates the fact of getting access to our network and our resources.
Deactivate the dissemination of our network
We can disable the broadcast of the SSID of our network so that the other people who scan in search of networks do not see ours. In this way we will have to introduce the SSID manually into the devices to connect and people who do not know it will simply ignore the existence of said network.
With these small steps we will significantly improve the security of our WiFi connections and prevent hackers from accessing our network without our permission compromising our security.