It’s important to feel like the Internet is a necessary requirement for 21st-century life. We have the unimaginable functional ability with all of our devices connected to the Internet which leads to higher productivity. It’s fair to assume that the Internet is for everybody and not just the tech-savvy. Unfortunately, the Internet can be a platform for illegal activity perpetrated by people of malicious intent when it is not fully protected.
Some of you probably don’t know that, but the Internet router is one of the most critical appliances in our house. It’s the key to our Internet connectivity and it’s also vulnerable to cybercrime attacks that can hack our computers and get connectivity to our network.
Let’s not ignore that we are living in the era of data hacks, and many other risks online. So you should worry about the home network’s protection and take all the requisite protection steps to improve Wifi security.
Ways to Protect Internet Router
1. Secure WPA password
Please ensure every password that protects your Wi-Fi network is long and unpredictable so that a skilled hacker can’t hack it.
Configuring any equipment with its default settings is all too simple, particularly since the default admin name and password are sometimes displayed on the router itself to allow fast access and configuration.
This indicates that hackers will attempt these to reach your network. Modifying both access names and passwords will make it increasingly challenging for a criminal to give access.
Using the CloudCracker app, you can check the protection of your WPA secured network. You will be required to provide some data (the same data that a hacker might catch or “sniff” out of the air from wherever in your network’s coverage with a laptop) and the service will try to acquire your password.
2. Enabling network encryption
Rapidly all wireless routers come with a feature for encryption. This is switched off by default. Turning encryption settings on your wireless router will help protect your network. As soon as your broadband company installs the router, make sure that you turn it on immediately. Of the many available forms of encryption, “WPA2” is the most notable and most useful one.
3. Get your router’s software up to date
Often the firmware of the router, like any other device, contains bugs that can become significant flaws until they are patched quickly by the manufacturer’s firmware updates. Please make the latest updates on the device, and download the latest security patches to ensure that online criminals are not left with any security vulnerability or leak.
4. Hide your network name
By default, Wi-Fi access points are designed to broadcast the name of your wireless network-known as the service set identifier, or SSID-to makes it easy to identify and connect to. Nevertheless, the SSID can also be set to “hidden,” so you need to know the network name before you can connect to it.
Because workers would know all the details of the company’s Wi-Fi network (and the same applies to family members and friends in a household), it doesn’t make sense to announce it with the help of which someone else who passes by will quickly locate it too.
It is essential to mention that protecting your SSID should never be the only step you take to protect your Wi-Fi network since hackers using Wi-Fi scanning tools such as airodump-ng could still identify your network and its SSID although it is chosen to “hidden.”
5. Use a firewall
Hardware firewalls include the first line of protection against threats from outside the system, and most routers have formed-in firewalls to search in and out data and stop any unusual activity. Typically, the systems are configured with fair defaults ensuring they do a good job.
Most firewalls utilize packet filtering, that checks at a packet ‘s header to decide its address of the destination address. This information is related to a number of established or user-created rules governing whether or not the packet is valid, and thus whether it should be permitted in or rejected.
6. Turn off network name broadcasting
If using a home wireless router it is strongly suggested that you avoid the transmission of the network name to the wider public. This functionality is also effective for businesses, libraries, hotels, and restaurants wishing to provide consumers with wireless Internet access, but is typically impractical for a personal wireless network.
So here is the few ways through which you can secure and protect Wi-Fi Router.