You never know when a hacker or any malware has the intention of attacking your Wi-Fi network, something that today we are all clear that it happens and a lot, unfortunately. That being said, of course there are several ways to protect your home networkand we are here to guide you a little on this topic.
Now, if you are really interested in sitting down and seeing what options there are to shield your Wi-Fi network as well as possible, below you will be able to find up to 5 tips that can save you from a hack or any type of headache related to itso say no more and let’s go for it.
Change your router username and password
Keep in mind that even if you have a complex password on your home network, this could still be compromised if hackers use brute force or if they manage to guess what password you have. For that reason, what you might choose to do is block access to your router’s admin page.
Why should you do this? Well, routers usually have “admin” as their default username, which is pretty easy to guess to be honest. So, to configure this you will have to go to the user configuration in the configuration page of your router, since from there you can put a unique and personalized username. In addition, the ideal is also that you obviously change the default password that the router has, which you can also customize from its configuration page.
enable encryption
In case you don’t know what encryption is about, this is basically a tool that ensures maximum protection in terms of data traffic that goes from your mobile or laptop to the router and vice versa. That being said, you will need to go to the Wi-Fi page in your router’s administrator settings and from there you must make sure that it is configured in WPA2 or WPA3, but not in WPA and WEPwho have been protocols that have proven to be insecure and are not trusted options.
And even though today’s routers almost automatically select WPA2 encryption as the default, it never hurts to check that yours is too.
Use a temporary guest network
If you often have guests at home or someone asks you for your Wi-Fi network password but you don’t want to compromise the security of the network, you can simply choose to create an alternate guest network so those people don’t use your personal networkso to speak, and thus avoid any kind of security problem.
So to originate this network, you only need to access the WLAN/wireless network configuration page, which is where this process is usually carried out from. There, enable the guest network, add a name and password to it and voila, basically that would be it.
Always check that the router is up to date
There is also always the possibility that your router’s software (commonly called firmware) has some flaws or vulnerabilities that need to be fixed. And just like all updates for apps, services or games work, for example, the routers also have enhancements issued by their respective manufacturers to solve any problem.
It is possible that your router is updating automatically and you are not even realizing it, but it is always better to prevent to regret and here the ideal is that you check from time to time that the device has the latest firmware possible. If your router does not allow you to update manually, you will need to contact your Internet provider to ask if a firmware update is available.
Use a firewall
The well-known firewalls (firewall in English) have been nothing more than a filter between incoming and outgoing network traffic, which means that these act practically as a barrier that detects and blocks untrusted Internet trafficor what translates into attacks by hackers.
In fact, most routers in theory usually come with at least one integrated firewall, although it is true that to access this you have to go to the advanced settings.
