Almost everyone has some form of wireless connection (Wi-Fi) setup in their homes and offices. A wireless connection is very efficient, because it gets rid of the wires and makes it convenient to connect to the internet from anywhere around and outside of the home and office. Also, it allows multiple persons to share an internet connection easily, regardless of the devices that they are using.
If you have a computer, smartphone, game console, internet ready television or any other devices that support wireless connection (Wi-Fi), you can connect to the internet easily with your wireless router.
A majority of these users of wireless internet connections do not know how to protect it from being used by hackers to carry out their malicious activities.
A wireless router or modem does not password protect your wireless internet connection by default, therefore, will let anyone connect to it. The typical internet users do not know how to assign a password to their wireless internet connection, which will limit access only to the persons with the password. There are other ways of securing your wireless internet connection but we will focus on password protection.
A hacker or scammer can drive around with a laptop computer, pick up your wireless connection from outside of your gate and use it to send spam, attack servers, commit fraud, visit child pornography websites, upload/download copyrighted content or carry out other malicious activities. These malicious activities can be traced back to your computer, and one day the police may show up at your door with a search warrant, claiming that they have traced some forms of illegal activity back to you.
Also, your neighbours may connect to your wireless internet connection to download or stream videos and movies, using up all your bandwidth. This will slow down your browsing experience and even prevent you from watching videos and anything else that requires a lot of bandwidth. Like the hackers and scammers, they can also use your wireless internet connection to commit cybercrime.
To password protect your wireless connection, please check your wireless router user manual or view the videos below.
To configure most wireless routers:
- open your web browser
- type http://192.168.1.1 in the address bar
- press the "Enter" key
You will be prompt for a username and password.
The default usernames and passwords are:
username password
----------------------------
admin password
admin admin
admin
If the above usernames and passwords do not work, please refer to the wireless router user manual.
Here are some video tutorials for password protecting your wireless connection:
Linksys Wireless Router :Youtube video
D-Link Wireless Router:Youtube video
Net Gear Wireless Router:Youtube video