We love the internet. Whether it’s bidding on childhood action figures on eBay while battling insomnia, emailing the latest Taylor Swift conspiracy theory to your best friend, or simply paying the electricity bill, being online makes our lives more fun, more connected, and a whole lot easier.
Unfortunately, as much as we love the internet, there are countless sneaky people out there trying to steal our personal information. Last year saw a record number of data breaches, with a 20% increase from 2022 to 2023. So if you live your life digitally (and you can’t help it, right?), you need to be mindful of your privacy.
We can start to lock down our information by finding out how secure the internet is in our own homes.
“You probably won’t be surprised to hear that this is a problem we have,” Alisa Hutnick, a privacy attorney at the Washington, D.C., law firm Kelley Drye & Warren, told Huffington Post podcast hosts Raj Punjabi and Noah Michelson of “Am I Doing It Wrong?” “Typically it’s human error in how Wi-Fi is set up or managed.”
The first thing Hutnik advises us to do right away is to check our router settings.
“When you take it out of the box, don’t leave it on the factory settings because it’s exposed,” she warned. “It’s very easy for hackers to get in. The factory settings can be changed, including the password, so it’s very important that you set a very strong password and don’t leave it on the default settings.”
Next, make sure you are using the encrypted configuration:
“Usually somewhere [your settings]there [an option to choose] “It’s ‘WPA’ – Wireless Protected Access,” she said. “If you just enable it, it’s basically the same as not leaving your front door open, which is something you wouldn’t do in real life.”
