Do you have problems with your internet connection? Is the internet slower than a Seat 600 loaded to the brim even though you have a gazillion mega-per second internet connection? Most likely, a friend from outside is connecting to your network, if you have WiFi. The biggest problem is not that he uses your internet connection to connect him, but that he can steal private information, such as personal data or passwords or put you in a good garden, if he is committing an illegal act.
We want to help you, so that you stay calm. The first thing is to be calm, because if someone is stealing our WiFi, we will know. First of all, we must bear in mind that when we create a WiFi network, we must put a good password, difficult to find out, if possible, a combination of numbers and letters, which prevents them from sneaking into our wireless network. Let's first look at the symptoms, which can lead us to think that someone is in our private network.
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Symptoms of WiFi being stolen
Detecting if there is someone connected to our network is not an excessively complicated thing. If we have any of these symptoms, it is possible that someone is hooked to our wireless network:
- Slow or intermittent connection: The normal thing is that we notice that the speed does not respond to what we really have contracted or that suddenly, it goes slower than normal, there are even times that it does not load webs. This is a symptom that something is happening. We must see what days and in what time zone this happens, to have an indication of who it may be.
- Devices that disconnect from the network: It is not normal for your devices to disconnect from your WiFi network, without more. This clearly indicates that something weird is going on.
- Unknown devices: This is not usually the case, since wireless network thieves are quite cautious, but if you see a device connected to your network, white and in a bottle, milk.
Make sure our WiFi is stolen
We have the symptoms, but if we want to accuse someone, better with evidence. There are many tools to detect thieves and these will tell us if someone connects to our network without permission. Knowing who exactly is, is usually not normal, since it is difficult to detect the name of the person, but clumsy people are everywhere. If we find out who he is, we can even take legal action against this person, since accessing private WiFi networks is a crime.
The simplest tool is 'Who is on my WiFi'. This tool works in the background and shows us who was connected to our network, and the connection time, as well as the different IPs. It is a very useful tool that allows us to monitor all the parameters we need.
Fing - Ideal for smartphone
This is possibly one of the best tools to check if WiFi is stolen. Fing is a free application, which will give us all the data of the equipment connected to a network, offering a lot of information about the data of the devices connected to it. It will give us, among others, the manufacturer of the device, the IP address and the MAC address. We can find it for free for download on their website and it is available for: Android, iOS, Windows, Mac OX X, Debian, Ubuntu, CentOS, Fedora 10, Slackware, Gentoo and Raspbian for Raspberry Pi.
Wireless Network Watcher - Exclusive for Windows
Very light tool, very simple to use and very practical. Wireless Network Watcher, does not require more than to be executed, to see who is connected to the network. This allows you to know the IP address, the device name, the MAC address, the manufacturer's name, the number of times it has been connected, the first time it has connected and if it is active. The downside is that it is only compatible with Windows.
NMAP - Open Source Solution
If you are more open source, you are in luck, because Nmap is a great alternative, open source, which may be of interest to you. This tool is very powerful, since it can perform different analyzes of the network. It is normally used to scan the ports of a client device, but it also allows you to scan an internal network and see who is connected to this network. It is not a tool for all audiences, since it is complex to use, but we also have Zenmap, which is nothing more than a graphical interface, which helps the driver. It is compatible with GNU / Linux, Windows, BSD and Mac OS X.
Glasswire - Visual and with alerts
It may be that the thief is not always online and connects at times, so constantly monitoring the network can be tedious. GlassWire allows us to an analysis of the bandwidth and know which applications are consuming the network and monitor privacy. It has a Firewall, which detects unwanted visitors. It offers graphs, where the status of the network is displayed and it has a powerful alert system, in case someone connects to your network, if an application tries to make changes or if an installer is trying to install a driver on the computer. It is available for Windows and Android.
Wireshark - For experts only
The Wireshark tool, it has several functionalities. This allows a complete monitoring of everything that happens in a WiFi network, but not only that, but also allows access to third-party WiFi networks. Hacking a third-party wireless network is a crime, but it can be used to audit our connection and see if it is secure. Although it allows you to collect all the data from those who connect to the network, it is complex to use and requires advanced knowledge. It is compatible with Mac OS X and Windows.
How to prevent my WiFi from being stolen?
The first and fundamental step is to change the password, for one that is secure. This is using one that intersperses letters and numbers, at a minimum, to give you more security. If we put some symbol, better. something important is change the username and password to access the router. Normally people leave the one that comes as standard, which can be secure at first, but a password that has not been generated by an algorithm is better.
In addition to these simple steps, it is important make sure that the WPA2 security system is active. We must enable the UPnP protocol in our router and from time to time, make sure that the router's firmware is updated, since updates are released from time to time, to correct security holes and improve the protocols against network access.
