Skip to main content

SecBytes 01: Basic WiFi Router Security Enforcement

By Md. Asifuzzaman
Internet connectivity! It's becoming like a basic necessity these days. Outbreak of corona virus compelled us to sit at our home and lock ourselves. Could we do a day without internet? Yes, we could but not in a productive way. Statistics show that a large number of consumers are using WiFi routers to avail internet access from their devices.
Question arises, Is your connection safe? Is there any intruder in your wireless network? How would you know? How can you prevent? Read more below to impose a better yet easy to configure security in your WiFi router!

Type 192.168.0.1 or 192.168.1.1 into your browser and log into router admin panel. Default username and password is 'admin'. Please head over to user manual of your router to know the credentials if that doesn't work.

1. Change your password. Make sure it's not something which can be found in dictionary. You may try to mix special characters and uppercase-lowercase letters in your password which makes it quite difficult to crack or guess.

2. Change WPS pin and disable WPS. It's the most common way miscreants try to get into your network using the default WPS pin of your router which is often found on the box/ chasis of the router.
WPS settings on a TP-Link WiFi Router
3. Change your WiFi name. Sometimes different ISP follow a certain pattern in setting up WiFi routers. So by observing WiFi names, passwords can often be cracked in a jiffy. Try to use such names for WiFi, through which it will be difficult to identify you.

4. Change DNS Server. Often we don't care about the DNS server address. Misconfigured DNS servers can slow down your internet connection, also they can be used to steal your data and infiltrate your privacy online.
My recommendation- Open DNS (Primary DNS- 1.1.1.1; Secondary DNS- 1.0.0.1) & Google DNS (Primary DNS- 8.8.8.8; Secondary DNS- 8.8.4.4)
Learn more about DNS here.

5. Check your WiFi version and encryption. Recommendation- WPS2-PSK & AES respectively.
WiFi Security Settings
6. Check DHCP list for unwanted devices.
DHCP List
7. Disable all kind of port forwarding if you are not a pro at this.
8. Change default router admin panel IP address.
LAN IP Address
9. Change username and password of router admin panel.
Router Access Control

These are some of the basics actions you can take to secure your wireless network. Here I have used a TP-Link WR841N Router for demonstration purpose. Please tinker around your router to find these settings.
Some more measures can be taken like MAC Address Filtering, ARP Binding, Local access control of router admin panel etc. I have skipped those parts to keep this guide simple enough for everyone. Although I have plans to write another post for advanced users covering a wide range of topics to setup in consumer grade devices.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Vapoclean: A sensor guided hand-rub dispenser

By Md. Asifuzzaman
Due to the outbreak of COVID-19, a huge amount of alcohol based disinfectants are being manufactured and supplied in many countries. But as the virus spreads through close contact, we wanted to bring down the number of times a person has to touch things. So, we made Vapoclean. Vapoclean is giving the following advantages to it's users: 1. Spraying ample amount of disinfectant as an equally distributed mist. Which ensures disinfection in the shortest time before the solution evaporates. 2. Decreases the amount of wastage. 3. Lessens down the hassle of refilling or replacing the container frequently. Project & Team Introduction Introduction User Manual Display View 01 Display View 02 Official Datasheet Copyright © 2020 Vapoclean by Shahrear Mahfuz, Md. Asifuzzaman, S M Kaiser Ahmed, Faizur Rahman. All Rights Reserved.
Post a Comment
Read more

TechBytes 03: Dueling Neural Networks

By
  What does these pictures look like to you? Pictures of a person from 2014-2017, right? No. Actually these pictures are fake. A new technology called Dueling Neuron Network, an advancement in Artificial Intelligence helped creating this. Dueling neural network is a system where two neuron networks contesting with each other like in a digital cat and mouse game. It is used to generate audible and visual data. The neural network has produced many pictures like the above ones. They look like real but they aren’t. GAN (Generative Adversarial Network) created these fake pictures. This particular network system replicates real data to produce fake data. Between two pictures above, left one is generator network which has the task to create training data and to get as realistic as it can. On the other hand, the right one is discriminator network which has the task to identify which one is real and which one is fake.  GAN is created through  pairing these two ...
Post a Comment
Read more

TechBytes 02: Block certain sites from your computer! (Windows Platform)

By Md. Asifuzzaman
Sometimes we want to block few websites so that other users of the computer can't visit those pages. Today I'll show you how to do this from windows operating system based computers. Let's do it then! Step 1: Search for notepad, right click on that and select 'Run as administrator' Opening notepad with admin access Step 2: Press 'Ctrl+O', navigate to 'C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc' and double click on hosts Opening hosts file Step 3: Then at the end of the text file type in- "127.0.0.1 www.example.com" (w/o quotes) Blocking Access to Facebook Step 4: Press 'Ctrl+S' to save the file. Now use any browser to test your target site. You'll see that the site cannot be accessed anymore! Blocking activated What if you want to revert these things? Just put a # in front of 127.0.0.1 in the hosts file. Example #127.0.0.1 www.facebook.com See you again shortly!
Post a Comment
Read more