EASY STEPS ON HOW TO SECURE YOUR ROUTER AND HOME NETWORK

Almost every house these days has Internet-connected devices. As much as we feel proud on the convenience that the IoT (Internet of Things) brings for us, we tend to oversee the threat to our safety and privacy brought about by the same. Along with keeping posted with practical home security tips, we also need to know about the security of our routers and devices nowadays. The truth is, if we do not secure our router and home network, it is almost as if we are leaving the back door of our house open. Hackers view these as a route to get access to our homes. The good news is that there are several easy ways to secure our IoT devices.

Only connect your devices when needed

We might feel amazed to know that even devices that do not require Internet for their basic functionality have Internet connectivity feature nowadays. On one hand, it is good to try out all the features of a product we purchase, but on the other hand, it is not a good idea to keep all features turned on in routine. If you have a TV or fridge that connects to Internet, for instance, you don’t have to keep it hooked all the time, especially if most of the time you’re just using their offline features.

Maintain a separate network

Have a look at the IoT devices around you. Which ones do you feel have the most questionable security? If your Wi-Fi router supports guest networking, it would be good to turn that on so that even if visitors connect to your router, they do not get access to your networked devices or shared files.

Give a name to your network

It’s funny how, just out of laziness, many of us stick with the network name that the manufacture gives it. Don’t do that. Make sure you rename your network as soon as you get it installed. Choose a name that’s unusual, unique and not directly associated with your identity or address. Believe me, you don’t want others to guess your personal identity or exact location from your router name.

Use strong encryption

An easy and effective approach to reduce security risks is to use very strong encryption methods on your Wi-Fi access. From the top of my head, I can suggest WPA2. As mentioned by Jack Shaun from top resume reviews, “WPA2 puts a constraint on snooping.” This means your communications and data will be secure.

Go for two-factor authentication 

I’m sure everybody has heard of the bothersome two-factor authentication that we don’t want to use to make our network easy to access or restart every time. Turns out it is actually critical to set it up to protect your network from getting hacked. If you have two-factor authentication in place, even if some outsider tries to access your network, you will receive an alert on one of your devices. This really helps in keeping the bad guys away. Lauren Perez, one of the top contributors to best dissertation service, states, “Go for the two-factor, every time it’s available. You don’t know how well it’s going to protect you!”

Choose strong and unique passwords

Passwords on devices are like padlocks on a door. People often like to keep the same password for all their devices or online accounts, as they feel they won’t be able to remember too many different passwords for different avenues. Sounds familiar? Let me break this to you that this is not a good practice actually. Imagine your password for one device leaks out, and the hacker will be able to easily access all your other accounts as well! Always pick a unique password for each device. If you can’t think of many passwords, you can get ideas from lists of baby names or even advertising slogans. Remember all those annoying password requirements that some websites have, such as combining numbers and alphabets, using special characters, and including capital letters? Apply all those to each of your passwords!

Switch off the Universal Plug and Play

One thing everyone must know is that the UPnP (Universal Plug and Play) makes your routers, cameras, printers and other such devices exposed and vulnerable to attacks. This was further confirmed in a study conducted by a group of research analysts, in December 2017. The study indicated that UPnP enables devices to discover each other by networking them all together without proper configuration. This protocol gives a path to the hackers to discover them from outside your local network, posing a threat to the security of your entire system, unless you turn off your UPnP.

Always use the latest firmware

This one might come across as a bit annoying, but yes, you always need to keep your firmware updated. The benefit is it will fix any exploits in the system right when they emerge, updating your router and IoT devices regularly. An effective way to go about this is to automate the updates wherever possible, or else, setup a schedule to keep checking for updates every quarter or so.

Be cautious with the cloud services

We don’t realize that many of the latest devices run on cloud services. Experts suggest that anything that requires an active Internet connection to function can cause security risk. Not only the devices would stop functioning if the network goes down, they would constantly be in the process of syncing all your sensitive data, providing an alternate route to outsiders into your house. That’s why they say it’s highly recommended to read your service provider’s privacy policy and take it seriously to ensure your data protection and encryption.

Track your devices

If you’re an entrepreneur or business owner, you would surely know that you need to track all your devices connected to a network and regularly monitor the traffic flow. Others should also be aware of the basic data security techniques. Your devices need to be assessed frequently in order to keep a check on the kind of access each one of them has. Data needs to be protected end-to-end, and any unknown devices detected should be flagged. If you’re new in all this, I’ll give you some pointers to check for.

See what security protocols your devices support.

See if they are easy to patch.

Check if the service provider has a thorough privacy policy.

Be wary of outages

Hardware outages can pose a threat to your security by switching your devices to an unsecure state. Keep a watch on your devices every time you face an outage.

Neither can we stop technology from advancing nor can we keep our hands off the wonderful devices that keep coming up, but we do need to be careful in using and maintaining our routers and devices, for the sake of our security and protection of our data. Improving safety in our homes is even more important than improving safety in the workplace.