Hello, friends! Greetings for the day. As we have been talking about pushing up digital security in our previous articles how to secure your online transactions and how to make your mobile more secure, today we will be continuing the genre by taking up ‘How to Secure Your Wifi Router‘ or ‘How to Secure Your home/office Wireless Network ‘ for today’s topic.
We are currently living in an era where WiFi networks are being used extensively to connect to the internet. Be it malls, railway stations, hotels, your home, or any public place, WiFi has become an integral part of our life for easy internet connectivity, but as usual, we often forget to care about the security aspect. So here are some quick tips to boost your digital security while using WiFi networks:
1. Change the Default Password:
If you are having a personal router at home, the first and the basic thing which you may forget is changing the default password of your new router. Believe me, these default passwords for all routers are available easily on the internet and so leaving it unchanged may create troubles for you, which you never ever imagined. So this is strongly advisable not to forget or be lazy to change that.
If some stranger gets to use your Wi-Fi and if he performs some criminal activity using your network, then you may be booked for that and it may be hard for you to prove that you didn’t do it.
2. Keep the firmware updated:
Regularly update your router’s firmware. If it’s not updated as soon as it is released, your network may become vulnerable to cyber-attacks.
3. Avoid Using Remote Management:
Most routers have this feature, which allows you to log in and manage the device from outside your network. There aren’t too many situations where this is useful, so you should avoid using it unless absolutely necessary. If you do use remote access, change the default port number (usually 8080 or 8888) to something less obvious.
4. Turn on MAC Filtering:
Although it shouldn’t be used in lieu of wireless encryption, MAC filtering can be a good complement to it. Most routers support this feature, which limits access only to those devices with the hard-coded MAC addresses that you specify. Configuring MAC filtering can sometimes be a pain in the neck, but some routers will let you easily add a connected device to a filtering list, which can save you the trouble of having to hunt down the MAC addresses for each of your devices.
5. Change the default encryption method:
Use only WPA encryption method and not WEP, as WEP is a weak encryption method, never buy a router which offers only WEP encryption.
6. Using public Wi-Fi:
We often like the free Wi-Fi provided by outlets such as Mc Donalds or some big malls, but if possible avoid that until it’s a necessity. If, however, you want to use it, never ever make any monetary transactions on that network. You never know if anyone intercepts your connection.
7. Turn your Wi-Fi off when not in use:
When you are not using Wi-Fi, there is a possibility that it may automatically connect to any open WiFi and trust me open Wi-Fi are the most dangerous ones. Maybe some cyber criminal has intentionally kept it open to sniff your data.
I hope these quick tips will be helpful in boosting your WiFi security, so if you find it helpful, do forward it to the less aware. You might have already started thinking by now that where your router security lacks behind, so start configuring it right away and enjoy safer surfing! Share this information to your friends, you can also comment about more issues regarding ‘how to secure your wifi router’.
Author: Vivek Desai
