Is your home WiFi sluggish? If you suspect someone is stealing your WiFi, here’s how you can detect and block unknown devices to ensure your home network is fully secure, according to cybersecurity firm, Trend Micro.
Some Wi-Fi thieves hop on your network because you didn’t enable the security controls or use a virtual private network (VPN) on your router. Others may have gained access to your internet through more malicious means.
Why Kick People Off Your WiFi Network
- Slow bandwidth and internet
- Hackers in control of your router, internet, network, and you
- Friends downloading illegal torrents
- Bandwidth exceeding FUP limits resulting in plan upgrade
- Asking people to stop is not working, nobody listens to your requests
In all the above situations, it’s much more efficient and easier to just kick people off your WiFi network rather than asking them to remove themselves.
Check your router’s web-based admin control panel
There are far too many router manufacturers to be able to make a detailed guide for them all, but the instructions below will be similar across the board:
- Find your router’s IP address.
- Open a web browser and access your router’s web-based admin control panel. Click here for instructions on how to do this. You’ll need to know the administrative username and password to log in.
- Navigate through the control panel and view the DHCP clients table (depending on which brand of router you have it may be called something slightly different). This will show you a list of all the devices connected to your network.
How to block trespassing devices
If one of the devices connected to your network is unfamiliar or suspicious, you can block it forever. Fing shows you the MAC address of each device connected to your network (the number will follow this format and be made up of numbers and letters: ‘xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx’). Make a note of this number.
- On the computer that is connected to your router, enter your router IP into the browser, then enter your router login details on the next page (to find out your router IP, use this guide)
- Once logged into your router, find the Security options (its location varies between routers and may be located under Advanced Settings)
- In Security, click MAC Filtering, then Add Device
- Enter the MAC address of the device you want to ban in the MAC field, give it a name if there is such an option, then click Apply, Save or OK
- While you’re logged into your router, it might also be worth changing your Wi-Fi password, seeing as your last one may have been compromised.