With more and more devices connecting to home and office Wi-Fi these days, it may seem that access points to your information are getting out of control. It doesn’t need to be like this.
All internet providers when supplying a router also supply credentials to manage your device and security settings, usually, Admin followed by a supplied key on the reverse of the router. Log in and change this for security straight away.
Once in and happy to look around, navigate to the Wi-Fi device list, each device will have a MAC address (a unique device identifier) the list may contain laptops, smartphones, tablets, smart TVs, set-top boxes, game consoles, Wi-Fi printers, and more.
Good housekeeping allows us to rename these MAC addresses, issuing them with their own name. For example, renaming device 53-H3-38-J3-W3-00 to Dave’s Laptop is much easier to manage right? I imagine there are a whole host of devices that you aren’t sure of. Maybe you have noticed something that shouldn’t be there.
Ideally, delete all devices and reconnect them one by one, renaming them along the way. Any spurious connections after this generally mean you have unwanted visitors. Change the Wi-Fi passphrase and share it with trusted friends or colleagues only.
Do you know who’s connected to your router’s Wi-Fi network? Maybe it’s time to check.