We live in an increasingly digital world and we have to train ourselves to be prepared for all kinds of eventualities. We are increasingly aware of the security problems that can affect us. Thus, with the passage of time we are better able to distinguish Phishing attacks, ransomware and other types of malware that may affect us. For this reason we keep our equipment with the latest operating system updates and we have a good antivirus. However, over time, many Internet users neglect the maintenance of our router. In this article we are going to find out how many users do not know how to protect their home router.
Why and how we neglect router security
At first when we release a new home router we can be relatively calm in terms of security. That does not mean that it is not convenient for us to make some modifications, such as changing the Wi-Fi key. However, one of the things that can help protect your home router is have the firmware updated.
The firmware update is important as it provides two great advantages:
- Fixes security vulnerabilities.
- Sometimes it improves performance.
For this reason, when we find a router that has not been updated in a long time and has no updates available, we can say that it is obsolete. In this regard, you may be interested in knowing the reasons to replace your home Wi-Fi router.
Users do not know how to protect their home router
In a report by broadband genie In which 1320 users participated, it has been discovered that the majority do not know how to protect their home router properly. Among the most worrying data revealed by the survey is that 88% never updated their router firmware and that 84% did not change the password to access the router.
An average home Wi-Fi network has 10 devices wirelessly connected to the router. However, 72% of respondents said that they had never checked the devices that were connected to their router. On the other hand, 48% commented that they had not carried out actions such as those mentioned above or any other.
According to Luis Corrons, from security at Avast, it tells us that if we have never changed the login credentials of our router we are becoming an easy target for our password to be hacked. In addition, it adds that if they are successful they can spy on our Internet traffic, hog our bandwidth, steal confidential information and install malware. As for whether users were aware of the possibility of their routers being hacked, it was seen that:
- 6% were very aware.
- 40% were relatively aware.
- 54% were not aware of the problem.
On the other hand, when asked why they hadn’t made any of these changes, 73% said they didn’t know why they would need to change their router settings. Also another 20% commented that they did not know how to do it.
It was also commented that in the study they carried out in 2018 they found that 52% had never changed the default configuration of their router and that it is sad to see that the percentage has hardly changed. In addition, he added that ISPs should ensure Wi-Fi routers are as secure as possible from the start and should provide clear support for users at all levels to change their router’s security settings.
Improve the security of your router in 5 steps
If you want to protect your home router from the beginning there are a series of things that we must not forget, with just 3 simple tips we can have very high protection in our router, which will avoid having security problems
- Keep the firmware up to date.
- Change the password to access the router.
- Remove the Wi-Fi keys that come by default, and also change the name of the Wi-Fi network or SSID.
- Deactivate the WPS of the WiFi of your router.
- Disables remote administration of the router, either via SSH, Telnet or via the web (HTTP or HTTPS).
With these tips that are so basic and easy to carry out, we will be protecting our router from cybercriminals. To be protected, you may be interested in knowing how to update the firmware of your WiFi router.
