How to detect when your wifi network is stolen

TipsMake.com - It will be difficult for you to imagine, but just back 20 years ago, you can easily see that the Internet is only in people's dreams. It only serves high intellectuals, researchers to share information with some people through the newly developed service back then, the World Wide Web. Email is not the same as today. The first email system was found at universities and even accounts issued through ISPs such as Prodigy and America Online were often difficult to use.

Going back to 2009, we will see a lot of things have changed. To this day, you can access the Internet in just a minute. The Internet is no longer a serious problem. These changes happen very quickly and often go in a better direction. In addition, technology is getting cheaper and easier to use. Accordingly, the Internet is also entangled with these changes. The latest change in telecommunications digital communications is the emergence of WiFi wireless networks. It's easy to find in cafes, libraries and airports around the world, WiFi has made Internet use easier, like the use of mobile phones flourished within the past few decades. . However, the bad guys accidentally or intentionally found a way to gain unauthorized access to the Internet.

The following article will help you find out if someone is using a WiFi network without your permission or when you want to learn how to determine if your judgment is correct. Whenever a user steals your WiFi network, they will slow down the connection, and even they can steal information from your computer or harm your computer via a network of viruses. . Therefore, this article will equip you with instructions to counter this theft. Let's start by looking at what constitutes your WiFi network. From there, you can manage the network you are paying for more easily.

Is it illegal to use WiFi network theft?

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The Michigan Court recently treated a man, demanding that he pay for the unauthorized use of a café's WiFi network in his car when he parked nearby. The man checked his email and accessed the Internet before being arrested and accused of using the network illegally. However, thanks to good personalities and at the same time not aware that this is illegal work, as well as the owner of the café did not know it was illegal. But, this case has laid the foundation for those who use unauthorized networks in Michigan to be convicted as illegal.

Before you can find out if someone is using your wireless connection, it is very important to know some basic things about computer networks. Let's find out some parts of the wireless network, this will help you determine when your home WiFi network has problems.

A wireless network includes a broadband connection from DSL, cable or satellite modem. You can attach a modem to a wireless router, a device that provides signals and creates a network.

It is a LAN (local computer network). LAN is where you install your computer's peripherals such as a monitor, laptop computer or printer. Your router needs to have a dynamic host client protocol (DHCP). In essence, the DHCP Protocol is designed to reduce configuration time for TCP / IP networks by automatically assigning IP addresses to customers each time they enter the network.

Each device has its own MAC address (Media Access Control - the real address of a network device, also known as physical address). This address is assigned by the manufacturer, but can be changed by the user if they know how to edit. Your router will use these addresses to assign to each computer on your network a network protocol or IP address. The MAC address or IP address is really handy when you look for ways to detect if someone is using your WiFi network illegally.

If you feel confused by some computer terminology in the post, don't worry. The most important thing is that you know how to check your WiFi connection.

How to see who is using your Wi-Fi

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It's easy to click a person out of your Wi-Fi network, but it's hard to detect 'intruders'. You won't even notice your Wi-Fi network has unauthorized users, so often skip the Wi-Fi off before going to sleep.

Those who deliberately infiltrate your network will of course bring a lot of trouble. Excessive network abuse can slow down the overall traffic of the network and even create the opportunity for malicious software to display sensitive files on the computer or the appearance of websites. Child porn or terrorism. And that could be the reason why you are being touched by the police.

Follow the security rules well and regularly monitor the access logs of your router to minimize the risk of your network being illegally compromised. To see who is using your Wi-Fi, follow these steps:

1. Log in to the router.

2. Find DHCP settings , the "attached devices" area or the part with the same name.

3. Take a look at the list of connected devices and isolate your non-owned devices.

The instructions above seem a bit vague. The reason is that each router of different vendors will have different steps. On most routers, you will find a connected device table that displays all devices that DHCP 'hires' an IP address, meaning that the list shows devices currently using the specified IP address. by your router.

All devices on that list are connected to your network (via cable or via Wi-Fi). You may not know if a specific connection is via Wi-Fi, but you will be able to use this information to see which device is accessing your Wi-Fi.

For example, suppose you have a phone, Chromecast, laptop, PlayStation and printer connected to Wi-Fi. A total of 5 devices. But the list you see in the router shows up to 7 devices. The best thing to do at this point is to turn off Wi-Fi on all your gadgets, unplug or turn them off to see which utilities are still in the list.

Everything you see in the list after turning off your network device is devices that are accessing your Wi-Fi network illegally.

Some routers will display the name of the connected device to use, so the list may include names like "Chromecast living room", "Android of Jack" and "Mary's iPod". If you don't know who Jack is, chances are he's a neighbor stealing your Wi-Fi.

For some ways to check who is using your other Wi-Fi, please refer to the article: How to check who is using Wifi Temple, your home WiFi theft.

How to lock your Wi-Fi

Block someone from your Wi-Fi network quite easily. You can do this by changing the Wi-Fi password to something safer, then encrypting network traffic with WPA or WPA2 encryption.

1. Upgrade Wi-Fi security from WEP to WPA2

The moment the router requests a new password that the connected devices do not know, all unsatisfactory devices will be disconnected from the network and no longer able to use your Internet connection.

To protect your Wi-Fi network from illegal intruders, avoid using weak passwords and changing network names (often abbreviated as SSID), then turn off the SSID broadcast feature. All of these steps help make the entire network seem offline for most external users.

To learn more about how to secure your Wi-Fi network, please refer to the article: How to secure your home wireless network.

More advanced security for routers

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There is no way to make a home network completely 'immune' to a professional hacker, possessing superior tools and skills. But if you take appropriate security measures, less experienced hackers will have to give up, reducing the risk of your network being compromised.

Although it is not directly related to the router setup, you should turn off the File and Printer Sharing feature in Windows. If a hacker has access to your network and all of your files, as well as your device, are easily detected from within your home network, the risk of your data being compromised will increase significantly. The "deep protection" method means that you use different levels of security access instead of just relying on a single measure.

Start by performing MAC address filtering on your router so that only the MAC addresses you specify (those that belong to your device) are allowed to connect. This approach is not entirely useful because it is very easy to fake MAC addresses, but at least it adds an additional protection step and will probably prevent some "fuzzy" hackers.

Similarly, limit the DHCP address to the exact number of devices you frequently use, to prevent any new device from being allowed to obtain an IP address even if they have broken the Wi-password. Your Fi.

Most important : Turn off Wi-Fi Protected Setup (WPS) setting. WPS allows direct pairing of devices with your router. However, the problem is that WPS is famous for being unsafe. Routers that support WPS are often attacked in just a few minutes, by following online instructions based on free software available easily.

Strong passwords, network encryption, WPS and SSID broadcasting are disabled as basic security steps for the router. So, if all these measures are applied, your router will be able to resist most unauthorized 'visits' from bad neighborhood neighbors.

If you live in a rural area, these basic precautions are considered sufficient. Because to hack into your Wi-Fi network, hackers must be within the Wi-Fi range of an average of 300 feet (more than 90 meters) compared to the router. If your home is 500 feet (150 meters) away and the nearest neighbor is a quarter of a mile away, your Wi-Fi capability is hacked very low.

But if you live in a crowded urban area, or the distance from your home to a neighbor is too close (for example, in a dormitory), the risk will increase significantly. Advanced technologies to perform brute-force attacks on home Wi-Fi routers have long been available as open source, downloadable free tools. Software like Reaver will easily pass strong defensive classes without too much trouble, so you must periodically check the router's DCHP allocation tables to verify inappropriate access.

Set the periodic check of the router control panel to your to-do list. Look for unauthorized devices. If you use strong security measures but continue to be attacked regularly, contact your Internet service provider for assistance. Successful invasion is a sign of a problem with your ISP.

See more:

1. When detecting someone using Wifi temple, do the following to prevent
2. How to block nearby Wi-Fi networks from appearing on Windows
3. Instructions for use and security of Wifi network