Your home wi-fi router might seem an unlikely target for hackers. But a recent study found that up to 83 percent of routers are vulnerable to cyber attack.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIt\u2019s absolutely possible for your home network to get hacked,\u201d writes Christine McKenzie for the website InfoSec<\/a>. \u201cYour home network is naturally vulnerable, which means the responsibility falls on you, the end user, to keep an eye out for signs of suspicious activity and figure out what to do if your network is hacked.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n That\u2019s one tip from McKenzie\u2019s article, \u201cHow to Know if Your Home Network Has Been Hacked \u2013 and How to Prevent It<\/a>.\u201d Following are some other takeaways.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As a benefit of a Lawyers Professional Liability Insurance policy underwritten by\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>Alta Professional Insurance Services<\/em><\/strong><\/a>, policyholders are automatically enrolled in the Alta Pro Lawyers Risk Purchasing Group (Alta Pro RPG). They have access to our exclusive policyholder-only services. The Alta Pro RPG website is intended to be a resource for independent agents, insured attorneys, insured paralegals\/staff, and the general public. <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Has Your Home Network Been Hacked?<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n How the hacker get in<\/strong>. \u201cOne common method is to guess the password,\u201d writes McKenzie<\/a>. \u201cIt sounds simple, but routers often come with a preset default password that the manufacturer uses for all devices. A hacker could easily look up the default password associated with a given type of router and use it to access countless devices.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Old and non-updated routers are most vulnerable. <\/strong>\u201cHackers can also exploit security flaws in the router\u2019s firmware. Since firmware is updated so infrequently, hackers have ample time to discover and exploit security flaws before they\u2019re patched. Infrequent firmware updates leave 83% of home Wi-Fi routers vulnerable to attack, according to a study by The American Consumer Institute (ACI)<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Some signs that your network has been hacked<\/strong>. An unusual spoke in network activity. An unusually slow internet connection. Your firewalls have disappeared. Your laptop acts weird, such as the cursor moving on its own. Strange software has recently been installed. You web browser\u2019s default settings change.<\/p>\n\n\n\n See what devices are on the network.<\/strong> \u201cUsually, this is located in a section called Device List or Attached Devices,\u201d writes McKenzie<\/a>. \u201cIdentifying devices is easy when they\u2019re named, like Christine\u2019s Laptop, but keep in mind that some devices will only appear as their IP addresses. This will take a little more detective work to match up your device\u2019s IP addresses with the ones listed. If any of the IP addresses don\u2019t match up, that means they\u2019re being used by an intruder.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n What to do if you\u2019re hacked.<\/strong> Reset your router. Change your wireless network password. Deactivate remote administration. Do a virus scan on all your devices. Update your router\u2019s firmware. Prevent attackers from getting into your system in the first place. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cRouters are built with network security in mind, but that doesn\u2019t mean exploits and vulnerabilities are impossible,\u201d according to McKenzie<\/a>. \u201cIf a hacker exploited a vulnerability in the router\u2019s firmware to gain access to your network, then a software update could patch up the hole and secure your device. Keep in mind that most routers don\u2019t automatically update firmware, so you\u2019ll have to do it manually when a security update becomes available. When it comes down to how to stop hackers, regularly updating your router\u2019s firmware is one of the best things you can do. Once an attacker gains access to your home network, they can do a lot of damage.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Alta Professional Insurance Services Agency, LLC, (Alta Pro) <\/em><\/strong><\/a>provides innovative, intelligent, professional insurance underwriting, claims, risk management, product development, and sales and marketing services to our clients using state of the art information technology. Alta Pro adheres to the highest standards of ethics and integrity to achieve superior results for our clients. Led by experienced program administrators who know their clients\u2019 insureds and the carriers\u2019 appetites, <\/em><\/strong>Alta Pro<\/em><\/strong><\/a> continues to expand our program offerings across the U.S. <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Is your system safe?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":21300,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[337,252],"tags":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/altaprorpg.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21299"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/altaprorpg.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/altaprorpg.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/altaprorpg.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/altaprorpg.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21299"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/altaprorpg.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21299\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21378,"href":"https:\/\/altaprorpg.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21299\/revisions\/21378"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/altaprorpg.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21300"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/altaprorpg.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21299"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/altaprorpg.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21299"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/altaprorpg.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21299"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}