Slow connection? If your PC and router have no problems, an overly curious neighbor or a hacker connected to your home Wi-Fi could be to blame
Lately you've noticed that your Internet connection is going a little slower than usual. Videos on YouTube are taking longer to load than they should and pages are also opening late. After checking both the PC and the connection they don't seem to have any problems. Then maybe someone is stealing your home Wi-Fi.
Securing your home connection is an aspect that is often underestimated, but on the contrary, it requires great attention from users. The risk, in fact, is not simply a slowdown of the line. In addition to the neighbor a little 'too curious even a malicious or hacker could target our network to access the various devices connected and the most confidential information.To find out if some hacker is trying to steal your Internet connection via Wi-Fi, just be careful and check some parameters of your router.
Defending your Wi-Fi connection
There are an almost infinite number of methods used by "smart" people and hackers to connect to your neighbor's Wi-Fi network. The most used technique is to try simple passwords. For example, there are those who give their name to the home connection and use their children's names or their date of birth as access keys. Connecting to these lines can be very easy for those who know the victim. And even many people do not use a password to protect their home Wi-Fi network. Which we always advise against. As if this were not enough there are also some software, used by cyber criminals, able to access our network, even without knowing the password protection.
The greatest dangers
As we said an intruder in our connection can lead to several problems. The neighbor is likely to just browse but a hacker can collect data from the websites visited, enter devices connected to the Network and, as mentioned, infect the computer with a virus. And, as if that wasn't enough, he could use our connection to carry out illegal activities.
How to protect ourselves
There are various methods you can use to notice if someone is using our Network uninvited. The easiest way is to use programs that monitor the connection and report unregistered devices that connect to your home Wi-Fi. Wondering what are the best programs? Let's start with Wi-Fi Inspector that allows you to save the devices connected to your home network. If there should be an intruder we'll be notified immediately. The only downside is the advertisements. Another software is F-Secure Router Checker which not only checks for intruders but also monitors downloads from your home network.
Manual Method
In addition to the programs, you can also find out if someone is stealing your Wi-Fi through your router settings. To do this we need to access the router's administration page by typing the address "192.168.1.1" or "192.168.2.1" in the browser bar. Once connected to the administration page, you need to locate the section that lists the various Media Access Control (MAC) addresses connected to the computer. In this list we can easily detect intruders and either remove them or change the password to prevent them from accessing again. To change the password, look for PSK or Pre Shared Key in the security settings. Once changed any connected device will be disconnected and you will have to log in again.