How to secure your Wi-Fi router from hackers

By Britta O'Boyle 

There are a number of ways to secure your mobile device from hackers retrieving information they want from it, but that isn't the only thing you should be making sure is secure.

It is also important to make your home Wi-Fi router as secure as it can be to ensure hackers can't access your computer, so here are a few tips to ramp up the security.

Find your router's IP address

The first thing you need to do is find your router's IP address as this will then enable you to change the security settings.

Three common router configurations are 192.168.0.1 and 192.168.1.1 and sometimes 192.168.1.100. However, if none of those work for you, then you can find it out quite easily on both Macs and Windows.

For Windows, you need to head to "Run" and then type "cmd", followed by "ipconfig" which will bring up a flurry of information. The part you are looking out for is "Default Gateway".

When it comes to Mac, you need to do is head to into System Preferences and then Network. If you then click on "Advanced" in the Wi-Fi section and then head into the "TCP/IP" tab, you will find the router IP address there.

Once you have the IP address, open up your browser and type the configuration into the URL box at the top.

Change your password

Most wireless routers come with a WPA2 encryption system, which is set as a default, but hacking software that can crack it relies on you not having changed the default security settings that your router comes with.

You need to change your password from the default one to a longer, more complicated one with varied cases and punctuation, which you can do from your router's configuration page.

Log into your router's configuration page online and head to the security settings, where you will then be able to change your password, among other settings.

Restrict access

Another thing you need to do is restrict access to your router's configuration so people from outside of your network can't get onto it.

This is also something you need to do via the router's configuration page and again, you will find the option in the security settings.

It's worth noting that you won't be able to configure your router while you are out of the house, but it is unlikely you would want to anyway.

Turn off Wi-Fi Protected Setup (WPS)

Finally, another good tip is to turn off WPS. This is an easier way to connect to your Wi-Fi without knowing a long password.

To connect via this method you need to know an 8-digit PIN that you will find on the router configuration page or on the hardware itself.

There are also some that offer a push button method but someone would have to be in your house to be able to use this.

If your router has a PIN option, then you need to disable it as a hacker would be able to break it quite easily.

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