Cyberstudy
Supplementary — not from your PDF Beginner ~30 min

Secure your home Wi-Fi router

Review your own router's settings against the wireless security topics in Lesson 9 and fix the weak ones.

Environment

Your own home router's admin page, usually at the address printed on the router.

Before you start

  • Read Wireless Network Installation Considerations (p.248), Wireless Encryption (p.249) and Wi-Fi Authentication Methods (p.250).

You will

  • Check the encryption mode
  • Remove weak defaults
  • Separate guest and IoT devices

Steps

  1. 1

    Log in to the router's admin page. If it still uses the default admin password, change it to a long unique one.

  2. 2

    Check the firmware version and update it if the vendor offers a newer release.

  3. 3

    Set wireless security to WPA3-Personal if all your devices support it, or WPA2/WPA3 mixed mode. Avoid WEP and WPA/TKIP.

  4. 4

    Turn off WPS if it's on.

  5. 5

    Turn on a guest network, and move visitors and smart-home devices onto it.

  6. 6

    Turn off remote administration from the internet unless you truly need it.

  7. 7

    Write a before/after table of the settings.

Check your understanding

  • ?What does WPA3's SAE improve over WPA2-PSK?
  • ?Why is WPS a risk?
  • ?Which security idea does a separate guest or IoT network apply?