The router in your home or office is
your gateway to the Internet, but at the same time, it may be a weak point that
hackers can exploit to tamper with your devices and damage them. If you are worried
about the security of your home Wi-Fi, you don't have to worry anymore. Most
modern routers nowadays have a handy and underused feature known as the Guest
Network, which is one way to increase the security of your Wi-Fi network. What
is the guest network? And what is its importance? And why do you need to
activate it in your router? This is what the following report will answer.
What does the term “guest network” mean?
The guest network, at its simplest,
is a network that runs parallel to the leading network on the router, both
originating from the same router, but the SSIDs are different (SSID, router
broadcast name). Some routers simply do not support guest mode because they do
not have hardware or firmware support for it. But most routers these days, even
cheap models, have some kind of guest mode.
By activating the guest network
feature, your guests can have a different name and SSID address, parental
controls, scheduling, and many other options that can be applied to configure
the network.
How to activate the guest network in the router
If the router in your home has the
option to activate the guest network, it will be easy to set up and get its
benefits. Routers vary by manufacturer, so the guest network activation method
is different for each, but there are general steps you can follow in order to
activate it. You can initially see if this feature is available on your router
by searching the router settings page. To access it, launch the Internet
browser on your computer and then type in the search bar the router’s IP
address.
This address is mostly 192.168.1.1 or
192.168.0.1 but since it is a variable, you will need to follow some steps on
Windows to find out the correct IP address of your router, just start by
pressing the Windows key + R together to open the Run window and then type
“CMD” and press the Enter key. At the command prompt, type "ipconfig"
and press Enter. Now scroll down to the Default Gateway line where the router
IP address appears.
After typing this IP in the browser,
press Enter to display the router settings page. But before you control
anything, you have to log in first; Where you will be asked to type your
username and password, and in some cases, it may only ask for the password. At
this point, try to use "admin" as your username and password, as it
is the default password for logging in to any router.
For these reasons, you must activate the guest network
There are many reasons why you should
activate the guest network in your router, including:
Stay safe from hackers
Hackers want to take control of your
private data, control your devices, and force you to pay for the release of
your data by infiltrating your devices with a ransom virus. By activating the
guest network, however, you can secure your router, and for best results, be
sure to change the default password on your router, and change (or even hide)
the name of the main network. Next, create a guest network to circulate to the
main network. These steps help unless you're specifically targeted by hackers,
they may take the easiest route and just network guests instead of spending
time looking for a potential network.
Easy to change the guest network password
In the past, when we needed to change
the password of a Wi-Fi network, it was easy to do so, all you would need to do
after changing it is to enter the new password in one or two devices at most.
But in the current period, many suffer from hesitation when needing to change
the password, because of the resulting password updates for a large number of
Wi-Fi devices such as smartphones, tablets, laptops, smart screens, printers,
and others.
Of course, if guests come and you
have to enter your Wi-Fi password on their phones, you will have to change it
after they leave your home unless you enable the guest network feature. The
highlight of the guest network is that you can give your guests a password and
then change it as often as you want while leaving the basic SSID password as
is. Guests can get a new password when they visit, and you can leave your main
network password unchanged.
The guest network isolates your guests from your network
You may find it safe for your guests
to connect to the Internet through your main home network, but you should avoid
doing so. Even if you have complete confidence in your guests, their children
may be able to access and tamper with things and upload malware to your devices
with unpleasant results.
Know that the guest network protects
your privacy, and there is no reason for your guests to be on the same network
as file servers, security cameras, smart home equipment, or access your stuff.
Guests may accidentally download malware or connect an already infected phone
or laptop to the network. Many malwares can spread over a local network, and if
an infected device is connected to a Wi-Fi network, it will try to contaminate
everything in its range!
The guest network protects you from liability
If your router supports fine-tuning
the guest network experience to apply parental restrictions and controls, it
can be a great way to protect yourself from liability. Someone on your network
might be able to run apps or services that get legal notices or attract
unwanted attention.
Then the settings on the router help
you disable access to peer-to-peer (P2P) file-sharing services, and so on.
Also, one of your guests may fall victim to using BitTorrent's (a protocol for
sharing files over the Internet between Internet users called peer-to-peer or
peer-to-peer where file sharing is between people without an intermediary)
without their knowledge, as it may be integrated with one of their other
programs.
You can isolate your smart devices from the main network
Smart home equipment, often referred
to by the acronym IoT (Internet of Things), is a bit of a mess from a security
and networking point of view. There are a lot of unbranded intelligent home
products on the market such as smart plugs, Wi-Fi light switches, and
intelligent cameras which can cause a problem. This equipment could stop receiving
security updates and support and it could be even more dangerous than that, and
they could actually be hacked. The hackers will then be able to gain access to
other devices on your network.
For these reasons, it is best to
place your smart equipment on the guest network, so that they can access the
Internet and do their smart job but can't access the computer, for example.
Unfortunately, you may have trouble controlling one of these devices or
accessing it when you move it to the guest network, so either move it back to
your main network or forgo it and buy another from a trusted brand.
You can enable and disable guest networking for some devices but not others
You may need to disconnect the Wi-Fi
from one of the devices connected to the router while keeping the rest of the
devices connected, and here disconnecting the router completely is not really
appropriate. However, with the guest network, you can do this easily without
affecting your primary devices or users, so you can easily disconnect a specific
device when it's time to sleep, for example, and you can also create a guest
network with a limited internet speed to reduce the high consumption of the
devices you connect to.