Number of connected devices

[jobeeeey]

Hi folks I'm hoping you can cast your eye over my issue and say yae or nae to me at the most (I don't expect you to solve my issue for me).


My query is this:

I have HG521 router that I've configured to allow only one device to connect at a time. The reason for this is because I've been testing security for a while now and I've gotten it into my head that someone is trying to hack my connection (it's secured). I'm probably paranoid BUT..

I only want one device to connect to it, my smartphone, and often the phone won't connect UNLESS I either allow more than one device, ie changing the number of allowed devices will allow the phone to connect, or I change the channel. Doing either thing will allow my phone to connect instantly again, but no other option seems to work, just those two.


Why will it not allow my one device to connect intermittently? Most of the time it will, but others it will not. That's what I keep asking myself.

I've got it in my head that the reason it won't always allow it to connect (even when there is wifi and an internet connection) is because some other device outside my home has used up the one slot I allow for my phone before I got to it.

Does that sound feasible or do I sound like I'm barking up the wrong tree?


I'll figure out what it is on my own if my suspicion sounds unreasonable, but I'd be very grateful if someone could give their opinion on whether it's worth me thinking about security being the issue or whether I should just learn what else it could be.

Thanks very much for your time.

 

[inzone]

You could be parinoid about people stealing your internet. But that's not to say that it couldn't happen.
You can go into the routers internal settings and use WPA2 as the enryption method and use a pass phrase instead of a word and use lower case , upper case and numbers and it will be very diffacult to crack and not worth the effort.
You can also set the firewall on the router and the Windows firewall to on.
Check the list of Mac address that are on the router and that will tell you if someone is on your network and if you see one then you can restrict or deny it's access.

 

[jobeeeey]

Hey inzone, thanks very much for your reply.

It's long been secured in the same way you suggest (I'd never leave it open) but the one thing I haven't yet done is check the mac addresses so I'll look into that just to be sure.


I don't really mind what it is so long as someone isn't attempting to hack it. If it's something else I'll get to the bottom of it eventually.


Thanks again for the suggestion, inzone. Appreciate it. That's something I hadn't thought of doing and will take the pressure off.

 

[RealBeast]

Also turn off WPS if possible, it took me under two hours to break into my network using Reaver, which bypasses the whole WPA2 security and utilizes the short WPS pin code.

MAC addressing IMO doesn't add much, it's trivial to sniff and clone an address if they can get past WPA2.

 

[jobeeeey]

Hey RealBeast, thanks a lot for your pointer man.


I did not know about the wps issue. Sure enough it was switched on, and sure enough having looked it up I see the swirly symbol on the back on the router.. so that got switched off right away!

I haven't yet discovered the connected mac addresses because it appears my crappy talktalk router doesn't have that facility so I'm reading about that now.

Learning lots in the process though. I went through windows networking but that wasn't showing my phone connected when it was so that's another issue to read up on.

Don't worry about using up your own time explaining it all as I feel it's better to learn as we go if possible.


Thanks for the protip, it'll sure help tighten things up a bit.






PS... as I was researching that I also discovered ho to MA filter, so I added my phone and supposedly that's now the only device that the router will allow through it.

So I reckon that's about all I can do to secure the wifi, and that's now that worry off the list of potential issues.


Thanks guys. Even if the security wasn't the issue I've come away with a far stronger wifi connection thanks to you two.