Router may have been hacked in to.

josha007

Hi all. I've recently noticed that the wireless light on my router is flashing now and again even though no one in my flat is using it.I think that someone may be accessing it wirelessly.I've got the WPA protection on it, but is there any other way that someone can get into it?I tried to log into Facebook earlier and it went through a security test because someone in India had accessed my account.

Josh

enigma52

its probably just a ping from your isp provider, quite common.

Hammyman

Second the above - router sends "keep alive" signals to ISP, ISP responds. Nobody can "hack your router". It could be that they try to connect, either knowingly or not, but unless you've given them the WPA key or its a noddy one easily guessed then they won't get further than a timeout. WPA hasn't been cracked and they're nowhere near doing so.

prowla

If you really did think that your router had been compromised, then there is probably a way to set it back to the factory defaults (I think you hold down the reset button whilst powering it on for my Netgear), and you can then set the admin account's password, and turn on the encryption settings too.
There may be an option to disable responding to pings.

jayme1

enigma52 wrote: »

its probably just a ping from your isp provider, quite common.

that would cause the 'internet' light to flash and not the 'wireless' one, at least that is how my router works.

OP just go into the router and check that 'remote access' is turned off, and if you are being extra cautious then just change your PSK

fitshase

Do you have a Wii, XBox or PS3 connected by wireless? If so, it could be that causing it even if the games console is in standby mode. My Wii receives updates and messages while in standby and is connected wirelessly to the router.

Could be something simple. Could also be something to do with the router. If it was flashing a lot then that is traffic from a source. If it's only flashing "now and then", it's probably the router just doing its thing and nothing to worry about.

Inner_Zone

Hammyman wrote: »

WPA hasn't been cracked and they're nowhere near doing so.

Actually it has:

http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/news/index.cfm?RSS&NewsID=3200541

diable

If no one uses wireless then turn it off.

Hammyman

Inner_Zone wrote: »

Actually it has:

http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/news/index.cfm?RSS&NewsID=3200541

Anyone with a receiver capable of working on 2.4GHz and 5GHz can receive the data. Its only a matter of time to decode that data once you've got it. But thats a world away from being able to connect to a WPA encypted network. The only way to ensure someone can't receive your data and potentially then be able to decode it is to hardwire and forget wireless. Oh, and don't use PLT adapters either as they turn your house wiring into one massive transmitting antenna with a range tenfold that of Wifi.

forgotmyname

I am with O2, My routers wireless light would only flash when it was being used but in the past
few months it flashes randomly.

Log into the router and you can see the list of computers/devices that have tried to access the router.

Lists devices that have connected. Probably nothing to worry about.

JasX

forgotmyname wrote: »

I am with O2, My routers wireless light would only flash when it was being used but in the past
few months it flashes randomly.

Log into the router and you can see the list of computers/devices that have tried to access the router.

Lists devices that have connected. Probably nothing to worry about.

Finally some sense, the only way to be certain is hop on and look at the logs* -see if someone else is connected, also be sure a router admin password is set and CHANGE it from the default.

Also worth noting both WPA and WPA2 can be easily bypassed. even tho WPA2-AES has not 'techincally' been cracked if we're being pedantic being 'cracked' only means there is a way of working out your password thats faster/more efficient than a plain brute force password guessing attack. With most people using simple/dictionary word based passswords brute force software really doesn't take long to get on whatever security is in place if you're really trying.

*unless someone is being really REALLY sneaky