Keep Your Home Secured

We lock our doors and have alarm systems to prevent break-ins in our homes. So why don’t we extend the same precautions for our online safety? In this interconnected world, someone gaining access to your home wifi could be catastrophic. Anyone with access to your home wifi can theoretically see any passwords or other sensitive information that you enter. This is especially relevant when dealing with home wifi since this is where most people do important tasks like paying bills or filling out other important paperwork. 

One way that people look for vulnerable home networks is called wardriving. This is when people drive around neighborhoods and search for networks that might be easy to break into. Software for doing this is readily available online. Additionally, there are no laws surrounding this technique, so hackers can perform it without legal consequences.  

To help secure your home network, it’s a good idea to change your router password from the default. The same rules apply to this password as all other passwords, and ITS recommends using a passphrase (like Ilovesummer!) and avoiding obvious words like the name of your dog. Click on your provider’s name for instructions on how to change the router password: Verizon, Comcast. 

Additionally, make sure you replace your router every four or five years. This not only helps ensure that the security protocols are up-to-date but also keeps your home network from slowing down as the router ages. 

Protect your home from physical break-ins as well as online ones.