How to find out who is using your Wi-Fi without asking
If you ever have doubts that one of your neighbors can use your Internet for free, read our instructions. In it we will tell you how to calculate and permanently disconnect digital thieves from your router.
The most harmless option is when neighbors connect to your Wi-Fi so as not to pay for the Internet. The worst thing you can get in this case is a sagging connection speed. But, unfortunately, sometimes the purpose of such connections can be not only to steal extra megabytes, but also to use your personal data, or even worse – masking illegal actions using your IP address.
Some modern routers are a full-fledged motherboard with an ARM processor on board, which gives fraudsters a lot of opportunities. They can literally catch the necessary data packets, for example, with your passwords, as well as use a router for spam or as an anonymous proxy server for illegal activities on the Internet.
In addition, fraudsters can easily change the addresses of the DNS server with which your router processes data on domain names of sites.
Thus, instead of the IP of the site you need, the browser will receive a fake address, and all the data you enter will be sent to the attackers.
A special analyzer program will help you to protect yourself from “left” connections. Such applications allow you to determine a list of all devices connected to your router, find out their IP and MAC addresses, and if third-party connections are detected, quickly go to the admin panel and block them.
Some router models allow you to track the list of connected MAC addresses in the admin panel interface, but this does not work for all devices, so the easiest way is to use third-party software, and use the admin panel directly to restrict access to suspicious MAC addresses only if they are detected.
Let’s look at the search for suspicious devices using the example of the Who’s on My Wi-Fi app . Download the application from the Play Store and click “Start using”. When you first open it, we give the application access to our location, after which the process of scanning all devices connected to your router will immediately begin.
To see them, at the end of the scan, click on the “Device Details” button. Devices that you recognize and are trusted can be instantly categorized as known with just one click.
If you find suspicious gadgets in the list, click on each of them in turn and look at the detailed information.
How to block a device using filtering by MAC address
If you are sure that one or even several devices have connected to you unauthorized and “suck” your Internet for free, in the detailed information window, click on the button “Block unfamiliar device in the router settings”, after which you will immediately be taken to the authorization window of the administrator panel of your router.
You can find the login and password for entering on the case of the router, as well as in the contract for the provision of services from your provider. By default, for most routers, both the login and password are “admin”.
After going to the admin panel, we need to add suspicious MAC addresses to the list of prohibited ones. The interface of the admin panel, depending on the router model, may differ greatly, so there are no uniform recommendations on this score. Here are just a few of the popular routers and the path to their settings for blocking MAC addresses:
TP-link devices:
- “Wireless mode” → “MAC address filtering”
D-link devices:
- “Wi-Fi” → “MAC filter”
ASUS devices :
- “Wireless network” → “Wireless network MAC address filter”
Rostelecom devices:
- “Network” → “Access Control List”
After adding suspicious MAC addresses to the blacklist, the router will restart automatically, and the device with the specified MAC address will no longer be able to connect to your router.
How to find the MAC address of your devices
In order not to accidentally restrict the access of one of your gadgets to the Internet, at first it does not hurt to find out their MAC addresses. This can be done in the settings.
For Windows devices:
Open the “Run” menu by typing WIN + R on the keyboard and enter the command line interpreter “Cmd.exe” in its field. To find the MAC address of your Windows device, type the command “getmac” and press Enter.
For Android:
- Go to Settings -> Phone info -> Status info
Here find the item “MAC address of Wi-Fi on the phone”.
For iOS:
- Settings → General → About this device → Wi-Fi address
This is the MAC address of your iOS device.
Conclusion
Now you know how to protect yourself from lovers of free internet, and you can protect your router from scammers.