How Secure Is Your Home Router?

Most home users set up their wireless Internet router at home but they often fail to keep it safe. In order to ensure better performance, greater connectivity and much better speed, it is also necessary to secure your home router. Most people take a router only as a device that allows a user to connect multiple computers with the Internet. However, one never gives a lot of thought into securing the wireless home network. It is largely not seen as a device that can turn out to be a security weak point to their system. Therefore, most people fail to secure their home router.

In order to ensure that your home router does not cause hindrance in the operation of your computer and do not turn out to be a security weak point, you will have to do some checks. Here is a list of certain things that you need to be careful about and some check that you have to do before you are completely sure that your home router is not left vulnerable to attacks.

o The first thing that you need to do is to check the encryption level of your home router in order to protect it and keep it safe. You have to find out whether the right encryption level is set up on the router you are using for your home network. Home router with the right encryption will ensure that no one else logs into your system and does any kind of damage to it.

o Open networks will allow another user to log on to your system and to use your Internet connection. SO ensure that there are no open networks as this can do considerable damage to the router set up at your home. An open network and the wrong encryption level set up on the router will also make other parts of your network vulnerable to attacks by other people. However, others cannot log on to your network nor leech a free Internet connection if your Wi-Fi is encrypted.

o In order to keep the home router safe from any kind of external damage, use the right encryption levels. WEP, WPA and WPA II are the three encryption levels that you can use. Avoid using WEP since it is regarded as the weakest and there have been evidences to show that it cracks in a very less time. You can use WAP II considered as the strongest and efficient to secure your home router.

o You can also switch on the firewall on your router to keep it safe and secure from any kind of damage. Keep a firewall active both on your operating system as well as your router to ensure complete security of your home network. Also know of the settings that you require for setting up when turning on the firewall on your home router. You have to type the IP address of the router or just use the IPconfig setting of your command line in Windows to set it up.

Keeping these factors in mind will help you keep your home router safe and secure.