How to check if the router is well protected?

Using a Wi-Fi router is very beneficial, especially if you want to maintain fast data transfer and stable connection in a large apartment or house, and even share a network signal in the garden. Unfortunately, when the Internet is made available in this way, the risk of burglary and considerable damage is increased.

What damages may occur if the router is not properly secured?

If an unauthorized person connects to a Wi-Fi network, it usually ends up using the Internet, reducing transfer opportunities and sometimes exposing oneself to financial losses due to the use of an overprogramme data packet. Sometimes, however, you can find a person who, after successfully connecting to Wi-Fi, steals sensitive data, such as those related to logging in to specific services, to the post office or bank. Then the losses can be much more severe.

Configure and check Wi-Fi settings

Each Wi-Fi router requires a pre-configuration during initial commissioning. The user must then set a password for the administration panel, and then select the Internet connection distributed by the router, and finally set the parameters for wireless network security. When the network has been running for a long time, in order to check the optimization of security, you need to log in through a web browser to the router's configuration panel and call a special security page.

It shows the security standards. If WPA2-Personal or WPA2-PSK is marked among them, it means that access to the network is protected very well, while when encrypting WEP or WPA with TKIP security protocol, the settings should be changed in order to avoid potential problems.

The use of WPS (Wi-Fi Protected Setup) is also a disadvantage if you want to ensure an adequate level of security. In this case, the user does not need to remember the password. There are two ways to authenticate access to a Wi-Fi network. The first one consists in pressing the WPS button on the router, and the second one in entering a special PIN consisting of 8 digits. It is usually located on the router's nameplate or visible in the configuration panel. The method with PIN is currently used much less frequently. More often you can meet with a connection after pressing the WPS button on the router.

The WPS standard, although very convenient, significantly reduces network security, so if there is no such necessity (i.e. if there are no devices capable of connecting only with the use of the WPS standard) and it is problematic not to remember the SSID and access password, the WPS function should be disabled. In this way, the risk of data loss or financial loss will be avoided.