All Wi-Fi routers on the market give you the option to enable encryption protocols that protect your browsing from PCs and smartphones. Here's how to activate them
During the current times, making sure your home Wi-Fi network is hacker-proof is a necessity that concerns everyone, no one excluded. The router's wireless network not only carries data from your computer and smartphone, but also from the various devices in your smart home (such as a security camera, smart light bulb and smart doorbell).
If a hacker were to break into your home network, he or she would have access to all the information on the devices connected to it. For example, he would be able to spy on our web history and find out what we do when we surf online and what our habits are; or, he would have the opportunity to spy on our hard drive or smartphone photo gallery and get valuable personal information. If, on the other hand, they "intercept" the data flow of the security camera, they could even spy on us while we are at home.
How to protect your home Wi-Fi network
Using a VPN to protect your data is therefore necessary, but it might not be enough. This solution, in fact, protects the browsing of a single device, but not the entire network. For this reason, you must be sure that the Wi-Fi network is protected by an encryption protocol that makes the traffic "invisible" to the eyes of a possible digital spy. An operation simpler than you might think: each router offers the user different cryptographic protocols with different security levels: the advice is to opt for the WPA or WPA2 protocol, the most modern and "armored".
How to change Wi-Fi encryption protocol
To check which Wi-Fi protocol is active and eventually change it, you will need to access the router's settings panel. To enter the main page, you must open a browser page and, in the address bar, type the IP address of the router: usually it is 192.168.1.1 or 192.168.0.1, but it could be that the telephone operator or the manufacturer of the network device has customized it. If this is the case, you'll have to find the router's address and enter it in the browser's bar.
Once inside the settings you'll have to look for the "Security" section, where you'll be able to verify which encryption protocol is activated and, if it isn't secure enough, change it. In case there isn't a menu item dedicated to security, it's likely to be within the "Wireless" section. If you still can't find it, rely on the router's user manual or do a quick web search. Now make sure the protocol you choose is WPA or WPA2, set a password to access the network and save all changes.