Your Home – Can it be more secure

We use more internet at home now than ever before. From streaming services for our TV’s, phones, computers, tablets, etc to garage door openers, home security cameras, speaker systems, A/C & heating systems, light switches and even refrigerators telling you when you are out or almost out of something the internet is considered a necessity these days. 

Questions for you about your home environment. 

• Are you using the default password from your Internet Service Provider’s (aka ISP) modem/router device? If so, you will want to stop doing that. While it may seem safe because how often does someone really see that device, sometimes friends, family and neighbors do and sometimes because you show it to them when you can’t remember the wifi password so you walk over to it to look it up. While your friend, family or neighbor may not intentionally try to give out the password, they sometimes do when their internet goes down and they are close enough to your house (right next door for example) to receive your signal. When their friend, family or neighbor is visiting them they conveniently share the password thinking it’s not a big deal because the friend, family or neighbor will only be there for a few minutes. In short, people talk. 
• Do you have a guest/friend/family/neighbor wifi that is separate from your home wifi network? Before you say I don’t have a network, yes you do. Your wifi is a network. When you plug in a computer or device and it gets internet, you have a network. The word network doesn’t just refer to a big company building with hundreds or thousands of computers, printers, etc. Technically, it only takes 1 router to have a network but more often we think of networks consisting of 2 or more devices. Your guest network should have a different SSID name (aka network name – the name you look for when searching the wifi networks available to your computer or device) and definitely a different password. Depending on the type of device, your modem/router may allow you to set a low speed limit for the guest network so anyone who gets on it doesn’t slow your main home internet down because of their internet use. Stay in control of your home internet. 
• Do you need parental controls enabled on your home internet? If you have kids under the age of 18 you should have some parental controls on the wifi to help keep your kids safe. Parental controls for the kids means you should have a kids network in addition to your main home network and guest network. You as an adult may need to access websites that would normally be blocked by parental controls so don’t hamstring yourself by putting parental controls on your main home network. 
• Do you need a backup internet connection? If you work from home you should consider a backup internet connection. Residential internet service these days is very inexpensive so having 2 is not a big expense anymore. If you work from home, how much money are you losing per hour that your only internet connection is down? If it is more than $75-$100 you will benefit from paying for the backup internet. Remember, your backup internet does not have to be as fast as your primary internet. It just needs to be there so you can answer your VoIP phone, access the internet and your cloud sharing data or allow your employees to see the up-to-date cloud sharing data you are editing on your computer at a reasonable level. If you have 1gig internet from Google for example, you don’t necessarily need 1gig internet from AT&T. You could get a 300/300 AT&T internet connection or 400/20 with Spectrum which may or may not be less depending on where you are. For reference, these internet providers and speeds just mentioned are based on our San Antonio, TX location.