Tip of the Day: Network security

For the purpose of education yesterday, my Data Communications class remotely accessed an insecure router in a city 2 hours away. We logged in as the default router Admin and the password was, duh, "password". We were able to look through the logs to see what sites this person has visited, we had the ability to BLOCK websites, to turn off the router completely...the possibilities for exploitation were endless.

The problem is not many people seem to realize this. If your wireless home network is insecure, your whole life is open to the public. So how do you correct this problem? There are a few easy steps to make this vulnerability go away.

1. Find out your routers IP address (it is probably something like 192.168.0.1, 10.1.0.1, etc)
2. Type that IP address into the URL bar of your browser and go.
3. You'll be brought to a login page...it will look different from router to router. 
4. If you do not know your login information, it is likely "admin" and "password", or consult your routers manual to find out what the default log in is. 
5. Look in the security settings (again, read your manual to find out where it is for your router) and change the log in and password for your routers homepage. 
6. Next, go to WAN (Wireless) security and change the security to the highest possible encryption. Right now, that is probably WPA2 or some variant of it.
7. Set a password of your choosing, I recommend using upper and lower case + numbers. 
8. Save

Done. Now you have a secure network. If you ever lose access to your router, simply use a paperclip to press the reset button on the back.