Hi all,
I just wanted to know if you change your home wifi password ? And if you do change it, how often do you change it ?
Thx
sj
I have 30+ IoT devices that would be an absolute PITA to reconfigure, so while I know I should change my WiFi password on occasion, I have never been willing to experience the hassle.
Let’s be clear though, your Wireless Router has two passwords. There is the admin password, and there is the password for the WiFi. An attacker can attack your admin password from anywhere in the world (in theory) because the router is on the Internet. An attacker needs to be pretty close to your house to attack your WiFi. An attacker that reconfigures your router can harm you very easily. An attacker that compromises your WiFi has to also then compromise another device on your network to attempt to attack you.
Based on the above line of thinking, I would be more worried about my router admin password than the WiFi password. In either case though, make sure they’re DIFFERENT passwords than any other passwords you use… you don’t want a compromised password for some random web service (online dating say) to compromise your whole life/network.
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I never change mine, it’s a complex password and the likelihood of someone sitting within range and brute forcing it is extremely low.
I have separate IOT and guest networks so doing it wouldn’t be so hard but it’s just not worth it.
I monitor what the kids are up to on WiFi so I usually check what’s connected a few times per day.
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As I am the only one who knows the WiFi password, I don’t change it often, every 10 years or so. I use a long, complex password and it isn’t written down anywhere. Friends and family (non-resident) only get on the guest network and I do change that password every now and then. Likewise, the IoT network is only for devices I put on it, so that password doesn’t get changed often.
For my wife & daughters, I enter the password for them, when they get a new device.
@PHolder any properly configured router will not expose its admin password on the WAN side. If it does this by default, then the manufacturer or ISP has screwed up big time.
What is worrying, for me, is the DHCP-style set-up of the routers, here in Germany. You don’t need to enter account information etc. for the provider’s network, when you turn on the device, it automatically asks the provider’s servers for its configuration - account, IP address etc. as the MAC address is registered on their system, before it is sent to you. The only time you need to type in your own account information is if you use your own router, instead of their’s. It should be relatively safe, but it could be a source for a MitM attack.
Agreed, thus my use of “in theory” but bugs do, and have happened, and my point was the admin password would suffer more exposure by being potentially abused via the Internet, whereas WiFi pretty much requires the attacker to be in the small subset of “neighbours with hacking skills”.
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Never change mine for the reasons above. With over 30 devices connected I’m not going to reconfigure all those.
SSID isn’t advertised, the password is long + complex, my Decos notify me if a new device connects so I’m comfortable.
When we first moved here a neighbour’s son used to connect his Playstation to our WiFi as it was quicker. Didn’t spot him until we switched to a mesh.
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As I have devices that are a pain to connect to WiFi, I don’t change my Wifi Password. The last time I changed it however, was when I got an EdgeRouter X, and I had multiple networks. For WPA2 networks, I had a total of 4 passwords, 3 of which are in use today (The whole one network to 3 network thingy).
If I had a 5th password, it was most likely before I got to a point before I was able to not have a WEP network, and before I realized that you use actual sentences as passwords for WPA2.
I have never changed it. I guess it depends on your threat model. I live in the country and anyone camping on my wi-fi would be very obvious. If I were in an apartment building I might consider changing it from time to time.
Of course with 83 devices on my wi-fi even the idea of changing the password gives me the willies.
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