If you are using a wireless router then you should read this to help you stay secure and avoid being hacked as you might have read that it is possible for someone to have access to your router admin page without connecting to your network as mess with your settings or even lock you out.
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Some people have gotten into problems just because someone hacked into their wireless connection and used their connection for illegal acts online, so it is very important to keep your wireless connection very secure.
You can read here about a malware attack on my router.
The following are security measures to put in place if you have a wireless router, a you need to configure it securely.
1. Change the default password of your router: This is something most people will never do as they feel they are secure with just setting a wireless password, all router has a default password depending on the maker, if the default password is not changed, a smart hacker can have access to your admin page and reconfigure your router to suit him. So try to change the default password immediately you configure your router.
2. Update the firmware: Just like we do upgrade our operating systems and other applications you should endeavour to update the firmware of your router as new updates are been released, though you might not get a notification to update your firmware if one is available but you can always check your router’s manufacturer’s website for available updates, as they will always release new updates to block up security loopholes on previous versions on the firmware.
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3. Disable DHCP Service: This is a very efficient way of keeping off intruders from your wireless connection. DHCP (Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol) enables remote computers connected to the router to obtain an IP address and connect to the different network without needing to know the IP and router address details. You should setup the computers on your connection to have static IP addresses. An easy way to also solve this without disabling DHCP is by limiting the numbers of computers/devices which can connect to the router at a time e.g if you have a laptop, an iPad, a Samsung tab which all do connect to the routers wireless you should set your DHCP IP users number to 3, so after connecting your three devices nobody can connect to the network again.
4. Use a more secure wireless password with WPA2 or PSK encryptions: It is no more news that WEP (Wired Equivalent Privacy) is no more secure and can be hacked into very easily, so use a WPA2 or even a more secure encryption like PSK which is even stronger than WEP or WPA.
5. Enable MAC Filtering: By enabling MAC (Media Access Control) address filtering you authenticate only the computers you want on the network, so any other computer/device trying to connect to your network will instantly be rejected.
6. Disable Remote Administration: Although this is a very good feature as you can access your router settings from anywhere but can be a big loophole for hackers, so if you really don’t need to access your router settings from other locations then please disable this.
7. Use the router’s firewall: If your router has a firewall feature then you should enable it, usually routers used SPI (Stateful Packet Inspection), which reviews the packets of data entering your network. If you router has internet filter then you should also enable it too as it helps to reject anonymous internet requests and keeps your network from being “pinged” or detected by other users over the internet.
8. Disable UPnP: there have being lots of reports of attacks via UPnP on routers. If you really need to use UPnP like for configuring Utorrent , game severs etc. you will need to forward the ports on your router without really replying on UPnP directly, Millions of people using routers responds to UPnP requests from the internet thereby allowing attackers to be able to configure their router.
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