Family, Friends, and Others
One of the best ways to secure your Wifi network as to make sure you never give the login to a potential threat. This may sound obvious but it boils down to limiting the number of people you give access to for your main Wifi network (especially if your smart home devices are on this network). One easy way to do this is to utilise the 'Guest' login that most networks allow. Then if you make sure that the guest login has no smart home devices and no data devices (phones and computers) connected to, you will be doing a pretty good job at home protection.
Your family mode of operation would then be to only give out the guest login to any visitor, friend or acquaintance and change that login fairly regularly.
Note
Never stick with any default usernames and passwords - replace them with new ones.
Make a Strong Password
The software and techniques used by hackers will first target the most common ways for people to create their passwords. The common 0000, Pa55word, Sarah1992, etc. are not the smart way to go. These and other common combinations of letters and numbers are the first to be tried by the hacker.
One method that is pretty secure us to choose three or four unrelated words and write them one after the other. They are not logical and a lot more difficult to guess. You can add numbers between the words too when numerals are required. For example - 'Today3Windy8Cucumber' would be much better than the common examples shown before.
Firewall Tools
Many routers have inbuilt firewall systems that enable you to protect the access allowed to your network. There are also additional devices you can attach to your network to provide the same protection. The only downside to this is that you have to check and approve any new IP address of devices as they try and join your network and this can be hard when they don't have a name that is easy for you to recognise. But, these systems are very definite YES/NO security switches so they can be very effective.
SSID
Every Wifi network has an SSID reference that you can edit in the router setup. This is it's public facing name and often the default when it is installed will have the name of the brand of router or your internet provider. We would recommend that you always rename your SSID to not give away any clues about the hardware you are using or your address.
Keep Records
Find the best way for you to record your passwords and login details. You will collect more and more as you go through life and you shouldn't make them all the same (even though it is very tempting.)
You can write some of them down if you have a very secure place to keep that record. There are some good smart phone apps that allow you to generate and store passwords which could work well for you.
Teach your family and friends to take responsibility for their login details and to learn to protect them appropriately.
Update Firmware
It is always recommended to update the firmware on your devices when you have the opportunity. These updates will often include improvements of a security nature and even though you might not notice lots of other changes in the performance or operation, these security updates can be critical.
Unified Threat Management (UTM) Systems
A UTM provides multiple security features or services that are combined into a single device connected to your network. By using a UTM, your network's users are protected with several different features, including the following:
- Antivirus
- Anti-malware
- Firewall
- Intrusion Prevention
- Virtual Private Networking (VPN)
- Web Filtering
- Data Loss Prevention
The Obvious
There are some very obvious things to do to protect your cyber security. Never leave your login details written down and in obvious view (or in an obvious place - like under the mouse matt.)
Many routers and connection devices will have their default login name and password printed on a sticker on the back of the unit. These are best removed.
Education
If you live with others (of all ages) who maybe don't have the same appreciation or enthusiasm for network protection, take the time to slowly teach them the important principles of online safety and the reasons and importance of protecting the security of you home networks.
For inexperienced users you may want to limit some of their access while they learn so that they don't inadvertently leave themselves open to hacking potential. You could make sure that you never leave on 'one-touch purchasing' or other 'auto login' features. Teach your users to be very careful when logging on to websites and devices.
Ultimately you will not be the only user of your online access and the more people you can teach to be vigilant the better in your fight against potential hackers.
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