If your WiFi network has been hacked, you may have more problems than you think.
It’s not as simple as your internet speed being slower than usual or having a higher bill with your ISP. All your personal information is vulnerable: emails, phone numbers, banking information.
You could end up losing all your money or even going to jail.
In this article, I will show you how to find out if a third party is invading your WiFi network. What’s more, I will explain how you can deal with it and give you some security tips.
What to do if my WiFi network has been hacked?
Information is one of the most valuable things that exist today. With it, you can control the lives of individuals, and that is why technology is increasingly looking for ways to protect it.
If your WiFi network has been hacked, malicious people could access your private information.
Contacts, email, or bank passwords
All this data travels through your WiFi, so if someone accesses it, they can get it. However, if you detect these intrusions in time, you may still have a chance to protect your information.
If your internet starts to go slower than usual, you may have been hacked. Of course, slow internet is not hard proof, but it should be an alert to at least check that everything is okay.
The best way to find out if someone else is using your network is to log into the router page.
View the devices connected to the network
We must use any device that uses the WiFi network and connect to it to do this. For greater security, it is advisable to use a PC connected to the router via a cable. If this is not possible, there is no problem, and any other wireless connection is sufficient.
Check under your router, which is the data to access the configuration. You should find an IP address, something like 192.168.1.1.1, and a username and password. Next, go to the devices connected to the network, open a browser such as Google Chrome and type in the address.
To see the settings, you must enter the username and password. Note that these are factory defaults, but they can be changed at any time. For example, if you cannot log in, perhaps these settings were changed when your internet was installed.
Depending on the router brand, the page that will be displayed will be different. What you should look for is something similar to “DHCP client list”. Here you will be able to see all the devices currently connected to the network, their IP address, their name and their MAC.
Now that I see the connected devices, what do I do?
Let’s remember that we are trying to find out if your WiFi network has been hacked. Therefore, you should recognize all the devices in the list. The name on the list should give you a rough idea of what device it is—things like a PC, phone, or tablet.
If this doesn’t work, you will have to check the MAC address of your devices one by one and verify that they are on the list. If you notice that there are more devices than there should be, a third party is accessing your network. Don’t rush this part. Many times the “WiFi thieves” end up being your TV.
From this same section, you can disconnect the devices you want. If they have the password, it won’t do much good, so you can go further and block the MAC. In any case, it does not hurt to change the password. In fact, it is one of the most recommended things to do.
What if my WiFi network has been hacked, but they have already disconnected?
This is a somewhat more complex case, but you can also find out. On the router’s configuration page, we must go to a tab that says something like administration. There we will find an option to view the “log.”
This provides us with a list of all the IP addresses that have connected to the router. You don’t need to be a cyber security expert to figure out if someone has logged in from the outside. Just look at all the connections and find something that stands out, a strange address.
So how do you prevent your WiFi network from being hacked?
To prevent your WiFi from being hacked, make sure to:
– Have your computers well protected.
– Implement the most updated antivirus.
– Change the data to access the router’s configuration page.
If you discover that someone has accessed your network, it would not be a bad idea to change all the passwords you use at home. This way, you will avoid putting all your information at risk.
