To surf the Internet from home we all use a modem with WiFi connectivity, so that we can connect wirelessly with any computer but also smartphones, consoles and Smart TVs. However, using the WiFi connection for the home also increases the risk that someone may connect to the Internet "latch", that is, without paying anything, by taking advantage of our subscription to surf the net freely .
This is possible because the WiFi signal does not "end" with the walls of our house but can even cover more apartments, sometimes even up to the roadside (if we live on the ground floor or on the first floor).
We find out in this guide how to check if some stranger is exploiting our connection without our permission and how to protect yourself from these alleged "hackers", so as to avoid the economic damage that derives from it.
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1) The problems of "latch" connections
If a stranger accesses our wireless network there can be three big problems :
- a slower navigation, due to the fact that a part of the band (sometimes even all!) is used by the connected "foreign" devices;
- those who steal the network connection can visit illegal sites and download copyrighted material via P2P, making the accusation of piracy or other heavy charges fall on the owner of the network (we risk paying for the crimes committed by other users!);
- the connection thief, if he is an expert, can easily spy on the PC or smartphone of the owner of the network, therefore using his devices as he wishes.
It is therefore spontaneous to find a way to protect yourself from freeloaders, since in the best case we will only have a slow connection, in the worst we risk fines and jail time, as well as being spied on while using PCs!
In the following paragraph we will show you what are the symptoms with which to notice the presence of "freeloaders" on the home WiFi network.
2) How to understand if there are devices connected without permission
Some signs to note if someone is using the internet connection are as follows:
- Slower Internet : perhaps it is the most banal one, since there can be many different reasons for slowing down the connection.
But if you are a slightly more experienced user and notice that, without having any active P2P program or program that often uses the Internet, you notice evident drops in the connection speed, perhaps it is appropriate to check if the other points described in the guide also coincide;
- Presence of "foreign" shared PCs : if the freeloader is inexperienced enough, he will have left the PC with Windows in standard configuration, assigning network permissions as " Home network " even if he is actually latching.
In this configuration, Windows shows the shared folders of other PCs on the network, thus showing its presence in the Explorer (just open it and visit the Network section to see if there are other PCs that we do not know).
If we see many connected PCs and at that moment only our PC is accessed on the network, the suspicion that there is some freeloader connected is very high.
- New programs in auto-start or in execution : if we notice new programs in execution or icons of programs that we do not know on the PC desktop, it is the case to do nothing more and to turn off everything, maybe the freeloader is much more skilled of us and may have taken control of the PC to spy on us or to tamper with the proper functioning.
- Check the new connected devices : as final confirmation we access the modem of our network from any web browser (the IP addresses to be used are 192.168.1.1, 192.168.0.1 or 192.168.1.254 ) and we check how many active devices are connected to the WiFi network .
If we exceed the number of connected and active devices in our possession at that precise moment (for scruple we turn off the WiFi from all superfluous devices and leave only the device we are using, isolating its IP as described in the guide to find your IP address), we certainly have one or more freeloaders connected to our WiFi network without permission.
If you can't find the modem password anywhere, we can check the default login and password database of the routers or contact the seller.
If we are looking for further confirmation we can use the free Wireless Network Watcher tool from Windows PC.
With this we will immediately display all the devices connected to the home network without having to access the modem (however, we recommend accessing the latter to be able to take the necessary measures).
In the presence of even just two of these symptoms, you should immediately take steps without waiting any longer.
Even if we were wrong (maybe they are devices of some family that we did not remember), better be careful and follow the following tips to effectively protect our WiFi network from any intrusion.
3) Defend our WiFi connection
Protecting the wireless network is all in all quite simple and, as mentioned in the guide to configure a wireless router, just go to the control panel of the router, find the section relating to wireless connections and set the WPA2-AES or WPA2-PSK protocol, having care not to select the WEP (easily circumvented) or WPA (vulnerable to some advanced attacks) protocol.
Once the right protocol is selected, we change the network password that we used so far (especially if it is the default password provided by the modem or our operator), making sure to choose a password of at least 12 characters containing at least one capital letter, a number and a character special (€, &, @ etc.).
If our modem is Dual WiFi (i.e. with dual 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz networks), we will also have to change the protocol and password to the 5 GHz network (if the latter is active).
Once changed, we advise you to change the WiFi password once every 6 months, so as to make any type of advanced hacking difficult on the network (just use the parameters recommended above to generate a secure password).
Another very effective tip to protect our WiFi connection is to disable the WPS functionality ; although it is very convenient to use (just press a button to immediately connect compatible devices), WPS has demonstrated several vulnerabilities in the past and is the basis of many hacking tools to immediately catch the password of a WiFi network in a few seconds, without the need to be computer experts (there are also smartphone apps that hack the WPS!).
Better then enter the password by hand every time by deactivating the WPS on our modem, checking the presence of this feature in the wireless settings or in the advanced settings for connections.
Another good advice we can give you is to decrease the strength of the WiFi signals, always if the modem allows you to adjust this parameter (many third-party modems allow this, while the operators' modems are much more limited).
By decreasing the WiFi signal transmission power we will decrease the coverage of the network, which will more easily fall within the home walls (outside the walls it will take a very low or even zero signal), without compromising too much the speed of our legitimate devices connected to the network.
Obviously this advice is valid only if we have a relatively small house and only if the WiFi signal at Medium or Low level still manages to cover all the corners of the house where we want network coverage; in case there are no conditions, it is better to leave everything at maximum or by default as assigned by the modem.
For those wishing to deepen the discussion on protection from attacks on a home network, we recommend the guide on how to enter a protected WiFi network and capture network packets .
The main related topic to this article is how to protect website accounts because if someone uses our WiFi connection they may also have intercepted traffic and read all the passwords used on the internet; better therefore to protect our personal accounts after fixing the WiFi connection.
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