The box in the hallway: securing your home router
Every device in your home reaches the internet through one small box. Twenty minutes in its settings is enough.
Change what came from the factory
Routers ship with a standard administrator password, and lists of those passwords are public. Open the router’s settings page (the address is on its label) and replace the administrator password with a long one of your own. This is not the Wi-Fi password; it is the one that controls the router itself.
Set up the Wi-Fi properly
Choose WPA3 encryption if the router offers it, otherwise WPA2 with AES, and use a long Wi-Fi passphrase. Switch off WPS, the push-button pairing feature, which has known weaknesses. If you do not manage the router from outside your home, switch off remote administration as well.
Put guests and smart-home gadgets on the guest network, so that a cheap camera cannot reach your work laptop.
Keep it updated, and replace it when it is too old
Routers run software, and flaws in it are found regularly. Turn on automatic updates if the router has them, or check for new firmware a few times a year. When the manufacturer stops publishing updates, replace the router: an unsupported router is one of the easiest ways into a home network.
This note is our own plain-language summary. For the full guidance, read the original: https://www.cisa.gov/news-events/news/home-network-security
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The Wi-Fi password and the router password are two different things.