7 Steps to SECURE Your Network

Can your network be hacked? You know, I'm about 90% sure that it can, but there are some things that you can do to help you not be so vulnerable, vulnerable, vulnerable, vulnerable, vulnerable. So in this video today, we're going to be going over seven things that you can do to avoid network hackers. Welcome, everybody, to our networking series for beginners. We started out building out a small home network, and now we have got all the way to episode number six, avoiding hackers.

over seven things that you can do to avoid Network hackers welcome everybody to our networking series for beginners we started out building out a small home network and now we have got all the way to episode number six avoiding hackers

And you know, speaking of avoiding hackers, just yesterday, if you are not familiar with YouTube channel Linus Tech Tips, he just got his YouTube channel hacked, lost everything, took the channel down. Now, I know I would be absolutely devastated if that happened to me. I am doing my best to prevent that altogether and prevent me from getting a virus, from me getting my credentials phished, anything like that. I actually just built a virtual machine this morning to just manage my emails. Everything I do with emails, any attachments that I open, is going to be done on a virtual machine and kept completely away from any of my production machines. Now, it seems like over the last few months, a lot of big channels have been hacked: Linus Tech Tips, JerryRigEverything, there are other handful of ones out there.

devastated if that happened to me I am doing my best to prevent that all together and prevent me from getting a virus for me getting my credentials fish anything like that I actually just built a virtual machine this morning to just

And also, just a PSA for anybody out there who is watching this: if you see your favorite YouTuber out there make a comment saying, "Hey, you won something for free! Go ahead and send me a message on WhatsApp or Telegram or anything that is off-site," it is a scam. Don't fall for it. I've run giveaways; other big channels have run giveaways where we have said that we were going to give something big away, and this is just prime territory for scammers to come in, pretend to be that user, whether it's me or another big user, saying, "Hey, you want something? Message me off-site." And the scam is that, you know what? I'm gonna send you a new iPhone or whatever it is; you just have to pay for the shipping. Send me 200, and I'll go ahead and send you out this device. It's a scam. It's fake. Don't fall for it.

channels have been hacked Linus Tech tips Jerry rig everything there are other handful of ones out there and also just a PSA for anybody out there who is watching this if you see your favorite YouTube out there make a comment saying

Whether it's with myself or anybody else, always be skeptical. Don't send money to anybody. Okay, now that that rant is over and you guys are more aware of it, if you want to know more about what is going on with me behind the scenes, stuff, things are coming up on the channel. I do a lot of that stuff over on Instagram. You can follow me at this link right here. Also, if you can give this video a thumbs up, it helps the YouTube algorithm push it out to more people, so I will be eternally grateful for that. And with that said, let's go ahead and get started into ways to help you protect yourself from hackers.

were going to give something big away and this is just Prime territory for scammers to come in pretend to be that user whether it's me or another big user saying hey you want something message me off site and the scam is that you know

Okay, so what we need to do to get started is log into our router. Now, the first thing that I want you to do is check to make sure your firewall is turned on. Now, for most new routers out there, this is going to be on by default, and some of them are not even going to be able to turn off on your own. For the example that I'm looking at right here, I'm logged into my Orbi router. I can't even turn off the firewall if I wanted to. But if you have an older router or maybe a different router, say for like this TP-Link one right here, you can actually go into the settings and turn that firewall on. So make sure that you do that. I would recommend Googling it because I don't know what router you have, so Google the router that you have, search for firewall, and see if there is a feature to turn it on.

whether it's with myself or anybody else always be skeptical don't send money to anybody okay now that that rant is over and you guys are more aware of it if you want to know more that is going on with

Now, let's dive into the settings of my router right here. So I've got the Orbi Pro router right here, and what I want to do after we enable our Wi-Fi settings is that we want to go in and also check our port forwarding. So for me on here, I'm going to click on the advanced tab. I'm going to go to Advanced Setup down here and then check port forwarding. Now, I don't have any port forwarding turned on right now, but if you do, I would recommend turning that off. You don't want to be punching holes through your firewall to allow any kind of hacker to get into your system. So if you have anything listed in port forwarding that you don't necessarily need, definitely disable it.

it helps the YouTube algorithm push it out to more people so I will be eternally a grateful for that and with that said let's go ahead and get started into ways to help you protect yourself from hackers okay so what we need to do

Okay, the next one that I want to check out right here, let's go ahead and scroll down. Remote management, this is something that you never want on. You don't want to allow somebody to remote manage your router. Now, if they attempt to try to get into your router, they will need a username and password, but if you've kept your same username and password, that is going to be a big deal. So if you have this option right here, go ahead, turn off the remote management on here. We're going to go ahead and click on apply to apply this setting. Get that off.

default and some of them are not even going to be able to turn off on your own for the example that I'm looking at right here I'm logged into my Orbee router I can't even turn off the firewall if I wanted to but if you have

Now, the next one here, we kind of just mentioned updating your admin username and password. You never want to leave this on the default. Defaults are typically going to be username admin, password admin, or maybe admin password. They're pretty standard defaults when you're setting up your router. So you're going to want to change that right away because any hacker that is trying to get into your system is automatically going to start with the default settings, assuming that you would never change them. So if we take a look at here on my site, I'm going to go ahead and click on Administration. We're going to go down to set password and look right here. My username is admin. Don't want that. Update your username to something unique and your password.

know what router you have so Google the router that you have search for firewall and see if there is a feature to turn it on now let's dive into the settings of my router right here so I've got the

Now, the next thing you want to check and update is your firmware software. You want to make sure that is up to date. If we look right here, actually on the top, this whole time it says right here a new firmware is available for my system. I'm gonna go ahead and click on that. It's going to bring me into the firmware update. This can update the firmware form. It's going to go reach out to the internet and update that for me. If your router does not do that, you may have to actually go to the website of your manufacturer, download the updated firmware, and install that manually. Now, the biggest things, the reason you are going to want to make sure your firmware is updated is because the manufacturer either has new features for that router or they are patching known vulnerabilities. As they know there are vulnerabilities out there for their systems, they're going to push out firmware updates to close up any gaps or holes for hackers to be able to get in. So make sure you are updating your firmware.

advanced tab I'm going to go to Advanced setup down here and then check port forwarding now I don't have any port forwarding turned on right now but if you do I would recommend turning that off you don't want to be punching holes

Now, the next changes that we're going to make here are going to be to our actual Wi-Fi setting. So I'm going to go ahead and we're going to click on setup right here, go to wireless setup, and change some of the few things here. So we look right here at my SSID. It is set to my manufacturer name and the actual model of the router that I have set up. This is the absolute worst. Hackers will drive around neighborhoods searching for wireless routers that they can take advantage of. It's called wardriving. They drive around with a powerful wireless device where they can see if you've got potential default settings for your system. Right here, we're looking at this right here. It's giving away by manufacturer and by model number. They can then go and do a search for potential vulnerabilities using standard admin names and passwords to try to break into your wireless system. So make sure you don't let that happen. Update your SSID or your wireless name to something unique to you.

let's go ahead and scroll down remote management this is something that you never want on you don't want to allow somebody to remote manage your router now if they attempt to try to get into your router they will need a username

Also, what we want to do below that is we've got our password. For the password, I would recommend not using a single word but actually using a passphrase. This is something that we talked about in a previous video. Make your password as strong as you can. This password can be up to 63 characters. So instead of using a password like "password" or "Netgear" or something simple, use a passphrase. The example we used before was using something like "You can't handle the truth." Replace some of the letters with different symbols and numbers, something to kind of spice it up a bit, but use something that is more complicated.

this setting get that off now the next one here we kind of just mentioned updating your admin username and password you never want to leave this on the default defaults are typically going to be username admin password admin or

Now, you might say, but if I m...

you would never change them so if we take a look at here on my site I'm going to go ahead and click on Administration we're going to go down to set password and and look right here my username is

admin don't want that update your username to something unique and your password now the next thing you want to check and update is your firmware software you want to make sure that is up to date if we look right here

actually on the top this whole time it says right here a new firmware is available for my system I'm gonna go ahead and click on that it's going to bring me into the firmware update this can update the firmware form it's going

to go reach out to the internet and update that for me if your router does not do that you may have to actually go to the website of your manufacturer download the updated firmware and install that manually now the biggest

things the reason you are going to want to make sure your firmware is updated is because the manufacturer either has new features for that router or they are patching known vulnerabilities as they know there are vulnerabilities out there

for their systems they're going to push out firmware updates to close up any gaps or holes for hackers to be able to get in so make sure you are updating your firmware now the next changes that we're going to make here are going to be

to our actual Wi-Fi setting so I'm going to go ahead and we're going to click on setup right here go to wireless setup and change some of the few things here so we look right here at my SSID it is

set to my manufacturer name and the actual model of the router that I have set up this is the absolute worst hackers will drive around neighborhoods searching for wireless routers that they can take advantage of it's called War

driving they drive around with a powerful wireless device where they can see if you've got potential default settings for your system right here we're looking at this right here it's giving away by manufacturer and by model number they can then go and do a search

for potential vulnerabilities using standard admin names and passwords to try to break into your wireless system so make sure you don't let that happen update your SSID or your wireless name to something unique to you also what we

want to do below that is we've got our password for the password I would recommend not using a single word but actually using a pass phrase this is something that we talked about in a previous video make your password as

strong as you can this password can be up to 63 characters so instead of using a password like password or Netgear or something simple use a pass phrase the example we used before was using something like you can't handle the

truth replace some of the letters with different symbols and numbers something to kind of spice it up a bit but use something that is more complicated now you might say but if I make something too complicated then when I have guests

over they're not going to be able to easily connect to my network I don't want to give out that password to people well you shouldn't allow your guests to connect to your main wi-fi system anyway you're gonna want to set up a guest

Network on here we have the ability to set up our own separate guest Network so set this one up click enable create a unique name for it so this one is going to be its own name on its own VLAN we're

going to set our Security Options we also want to make sure we've got the best Security Options on there at least WPA2 on here so we're going to go ahead and select that one set a network password we also want to have a password

we don't want just anyone driving by being able to connect to Our Guest Wireless and speaking of security I'm going to go back here to wireless one this is going to be my main Wireless on my account right here I've got Security

Options here like I mentioned before you want to be using at least WPA2 if not wpa3 now if you try to use wpa3 if you have an older device that is not compatible with that it might not work

so we're going to go ahead and select this one right here this is going to be both it's going to give us WPA2 and wpa3 capabilities so that way if it's capable of wp3 it'll use it if not it it does

still use the WPA2 for security so the last thing I wanted to mention to protect from hackers we're going to go in here and go up to setup and we are going to go to WAN setup so this right

here respond to pings from the internet essentially what that means right there is that if someone outside of your network from the internet tries to Ping your home network your network is not going to respond which is what we want

if somebody outside of your network finds out what your public IP address is and tries to Ping it we don't want it to respond so we're going to turn off respond to pings from the internet no uncheck that go ahead and click apply

and get that set up because sometimes what hackers will do is they're going to try to Ping your public IP address to be able to see if you are up and running to see if they can test out any

vulnerabilities against you okay well there you have it those are some of the steps that you can do to avoid Hackers from getting into your home network if if you have made it this far into the video thank you so much for sticking

around if you have any questions feel free to throw them in the comments I will do my best to answer those for you if you found this video helpful give it a thumbs up let me know that you liked

it tell others about it don't forget to subscribe and I'll see you guys in the next video [Music] foreign [Applause] [Music] [Music]