Page 17 - Cyber Warnings

Turn off Guest Networks:

Guest networks are a convenient and easier way to give Wi-Fi access to you guests. What
makes these guest networks vulnerable is that most people set a very easy password for these
networks or worse, no password at all.

Many times, Wi-Fi signals range is more than your house’ boundaries and this way your
neighbours and even strangers can connect to your guest network.

Although you can disable important tasks such as file sharing on guest networks, those
unwanted users can still make you pay more for your internet bills by consuming more internet
bandwidth.

Turn off WPS

WPS, also known as Wi-Fi Protected Setup, is a feature using which a device can connect to
your router without any password authentication, even if you have encryption turned on.

All you need to do is pressing a WPS button on your router and connect your device with that
router. That’s it.

There are many disadvantages of WPS, however, that easily outweighs its utility.

• If your router is placed in an unsecured area, anyone can press that WPS button and
connect to your router.

• WPS-feature only has 8-digit PIN and a hacker can easily run different techniques
(like Brute force attack) to unlock it.

• WPS pins cannot be changed.

Considering these above points, it’s better to turn WPS off.

Reduce your router bandwidth

Sometimes we have a small house and a very long range router like Asus AC88U. In this
scenario, Wi-Fi signals can be broadcasted far more than your house’ boundaries.

One simple solution to deal with this problem is to turn on “Power-saving mode” on your router.

17 Cyber Warnings E-Magazine – May 2017 Edition
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