4 Suggestions to Increase the Security of Your Home Network
One of the biggest impacts of Covid-19 is the number of people working from home drastically increased. This resulted in companies’ increasing the security of the connection between the corporate networks and the devices of the employees. Some of them also created corporate policies/procedures to increase the awareness of their employees about information security. These activities mainly focus on improving the security of the corporate networks.
On the other hand, people are using their internet connection to connect to corporate networks. Also, it’s anticipated that by 2025, there will be more than 9 smart devices per person. Having more connected devices will lead to an increase in the vulnerabilities that can cause security incidents. This leads us to the reason for this article; 4 suggestions to increase the security of your home network.
These suggestions are focusing on wireless connection. In order to implement these suggestions which mainly focus on wireless internet connection, it is sufficient to be able to log into the interface of the modem (or the hardware that provides wireless internet like an access point, a router, etc.) you use.
1. Set a strong password/passphrase for the wireless connection
The first step of a secure wireless network is to set a strong password for the connection: Set a password that is at least 14 characters long which contains both letters and numbers. There is a motto recently: “Passphrase, no password”. I’m trying to set my passwords accordingly. Regarding this, I suggest you watch Edward Snowden’s video at the link. By the way, there are options where you can only use hexadecimal characters or you can use any character, depending on the type of wireless connection’s security algorithm. Please take this into consideration as well.
2. Change the admin password for the hardware that provides wireless connection (also change the username if possible)
Most of the devices that provide wireless connections can be accessed with a default username and password (like admin/admin). It is possible to find these credentials easily as a result of a quick search on the internet. Therefore, I recommend that you update the relevant password as I shared above. Make sure that the password for the connection and the device are not the same. Also, if you can, assign another user instead of the default user.
3. Enable auto-update for the hardware
Software updates usually fix information security vulnerabilities. Therefore, the more up-to-date the device’s software, the higher the security level. Even this sometimes causes various problems in terms of functionality, this is also valid for computers and smartphones.
A software called firmware is used in the devices that provide wireless connections. They usually have an option to automatically update the firmware. Make sure this is on. If there is no such setting, check if there is an update by using the interface of the device every few months. Let me also note here that some service providers automatically install updates.
4. Create a guest network
Most of the current devices have the possibility to create a guest network. In order to provide internet to your guests (or neighbors), create a guest network and direct them to connect to this network. It may sound a bit of an exaggeration, but there can be malware or similar malicious software on their devices. It would be more appropriate to act in this way so that you’re not affected by this kind of vulnerabilities. You can also define specific bandwidth for this network. In this way, you will have the opportunity to provide internet without sharing your entire bandwidth. Don’t forget the disable the connection when it’s not in use.
If you have any suggestions, I kindly ask you to share them as a comment.
