7 Quick Tips for Keeping Hackers Out of Your Home
Connected devices are awesome, and they are everywhere. But just because they are in most homes and make our lives easier doesn’t mean that they are always safe. In fact, a lot of recent news warns us that connected devices are an easy way for hackers to get into your home if we are not careful.
To take steps towards making your connected devices safer, and your home safer, here are seven tips you can use right now:
1. Buy secure devices
Just because a device is cool doesn’t mean that it is safe. Before purchasing a connected device, make sure you do your research. See what the manufacturers and real customers are saying about the devices. This will let you know if the device has any vulnerabilities that could leave you and your home network exposed.
2. Make your home router bulletproof
Your router is the heart of your home network, so make sure that it is as secure as possible. To do this, make sure to do the following:
- Secure it with a strong username and password
- Update it as often as possible
- Close unused ports
- Enable the firewall
- Enable your device’s firewall
3. Take inventory on all of your devices
Know all of your connected devices. It’s a great idea to take inventory of all of your connected devices – including media access control (MAC) and internet protocol (IP) addresses – and write them all down. This way if you are attacked you can remove any of the devices from your network right away. If you write them all down in a file on your computer, make sure that the file is secured with a strong password.
Keeping track of all of your devices can be overwhelming. To make it easier on yourself, you can use a WiFi network management system. WiFi management systems are the experts at keeping track of all of your connected devices. Not only that, they optimize your network and diagnose any issues to troubleshoot.
4. Separate your connected devices on their own network
Set up a guest network from your regular home network for your connected devices. Keeping your smart home devices separate will help protect your home network and other devices if your connected devices are hacked.
5. Protect your devices
Your connected devices will likely come with a factory-installed username and password. Make sure to change this right away to a strong username and password. If the device doesn’t allow you to change the username or password, invest in a more secured device.
6. Update your devices
Updates and patches are constantly being rolled out. Make sure that you update your device’s firmware and software on a regular basis. Staying on top of updates is a quick way to make sure your devices are secure, and vulnerabilities are fixed.
7. Review privacy settings on your devices
Your device should have privacy and data sharing settings that you can customize. If you are using the device but don’t need it to be connected, then turn the connected feature off. Also look for information on data sharing and where that information is going. If you don’t need to share that data, turn off that sharing, too.
At the end of the day, securing your device isn’t hard work, but it does take some effort on your part. But the effort is worth it to know that you are taking the steps to keep your home network, yourself and anyone else that connects to it safe.
Take the guess work out of managing your home network with Optim, a WiFi management solution that is ready to optimize your networks’ performance and secure it right away.
For more WiFi tips, check out Actiontec’s featured Industry Articles or the Actiontec blog.