Ken Haywood had no clue that the WiFi connection in his Navi Mumbai flat was being used to send terror threats. With the use, and misuse, of WiFi networks on the rise, ARJUN JASSAL explains how to save yourself from a similar predicament

The convenience of Internet connectivity across your house without the tangle of wires is indisputable. WiFi lets you roam across its range, while being connected to the Internet at all times. Setting it up is quite easy: all you have to do is get a router, a device that connects to the wires of your Internet connection and converts data into packets that are transmitted through radio waves inside your premises. Your computer catches these packets whenever it is within this area, interprets them as web pages, takes data from you and retransmits them to the router, which then sends this data over wires to the Internet. This technology lets you connect seamlessly to the Web.
But as US expatriate Ken Haywood found out after the serial bomb blasts in Bangalore and Ahmedabad, this convenience needs to be monitored, ensuring that it doesn’t fall into the hands of people who could misuse it. Here are some tips to ensure that your WiFi connection isn’t used on the sly by anyone outside your house:

Change all passwords
Like all devices in a network, your router too has an IP address. This IP address lets you configure passwords that every user needs to enter to access your WiFi network. Usually, routers have default passwords that are easily known and hence can't be secured. Ask your service provider for your router's IP address (phone help can be a boon here), and change it. This password should only be shared with people who live in the same apartment as you.

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