A survey conducted by Broadband Genie shows that a lot of broadband users don’t have the basic knowledge to protect their router from hackers, while this survey was based on UK users, these results reflects almost same consumers habits from all around the globe.
Honestly, no one ever thinks of changing their router Password in a while. In the UK, around 65 percent of users have never gone into router settings to update WIFI password and 84 percent of them have never tried to set up a new and strong admin password in router settings. Amazingly, numerous people just set their home network and forget about it. Usually, users just take the password and the SSID given by their internet provider and that’s what they use. Furthermore, 48 percent of the respondents said they never tried to think about this perspective of router security. Data analysis shows a typical home Wi-Fi network is connected to ten devices. Around 7 in 10 had never checked how many unknown devices are connected to their routers. Ultimately, if your Wi-Fi network isn’t secured, anyone can hack your devices and access your profiles through your wireless network. It will also increase your monthly internet bill, especially in the case where you have to pay per bite of your data transfer to your internet service provider, and also it will decrease your internet access speed as more devices are connected to your router without your consent.
It is pretty easy to make your wireless network secure. The first thing you need to do is to change the (Service Set Identifier). This is the ID that comes up when you’re searching for Wi-Fi. What you may not realize is that a lot of these IDs can be tied back to the manufacturer of that particular router, and that router may have known vulnerabilities, it can be easily hacked. So what you have to do is just rename your ID and don’t make it too personally identifiable. It’s not going to make it super secure, but it is just a simple change that you can make. Secondly, you need to set up a new more secure password (don’t use a password from your existing accounts). You can use a password generator or a password manager to help you choose a unique and hard-to-access password. Another thing you have to look at is disabling remote access, so if you are not near to the device, the internet won’t be accessible at the farthest. Hope this will help you in keeping your broadband safe and secure.
Read next: The 20 most common passwords revealed
Honestly, no one ever thinks of changing their router Password in a while. In the UK, around 65 percent of users have never gone into router settings to update WIFI password and 84 percent of them have never tried to set up a new and strong admin password in router settings. Amazingly, numerous people just set their home network and forget about it. Usually, users just take the password and the SSID given by their internet provider and that’s what they use. Furthermore, 48 percent of the respondents said they never tried to think about this perspective of router security. Data analysis shows a typical home Wi-Fi network is connected to ten devices. Around 7 in 10 had never checked how many unknown devices are connected to their routers. Ultimately, if your Wi-Fi network isn’t secured, anyone can hack your devices and access your profiles through your wireless network. It will also increase your monthly internet bill, especially in the case where you have to pay per bite of your data transfer to your internet service provider, and also it will decrease your internet access speed as more devices are connected to your router without your consent.
It is pretty easy to make your wireless network secure. The first thing you need to do is to change the (Service Set Identifier). This is the ID that comes up when you’re searching for Wi-Fi. What you may not realize is that a lot of these IDs can be tied back to the manufacturer of that particular router, and that router may have known vulnerabilities, it can be easily hacked. So what you have to do is just rename your ID and don’t make it too personally identifiable. It’s not going to make it super secure, but it is just a simple change that you can make. Secondly, you need to set up a new more secure password (don’t use a password from your existing accounts). You can use a password generator or a password manager to help you choose a unique and hard-to-access password. Another thing you have to look at is disabling remote access, so if you are not near to the device, the internet won’t be accessible at the farthest. Hope this will help you in keeping your broadband safe and secure.
Read next: The 20 most common passwords revealed