Our router is in charge of giving us access to the Internet, but if we are not careful this can be used by more than one neighbor. It is very important that we keep track of all the equipment that we have connected to our device, because if we do it that way we will know at all times if there is any that we have not authorized. In this article we tell you how to know which devices are connected to the router, as well as what you can do to block them.
Keeping track of who is connected to our router is actually a very simple task . Next, you will be able to see some ways to verify it, some of them being as simple as downloading a simple application for our smartphone.
Ways to know if someone is online
As we say, it is very important to know who is connected to our router, since without us knowing it, it may happen that there is a neighbor who is using our network without us knowing it. This is now very common on vacations, since people go on vacation and do not usually take with them solutions to have Internet while they are in a vacation rental apartment, for example.
Visual inspection of the router
It may sound a bit strange, but a simple glance at the router can let us know if someone is connected to our network without permission. In our device there is a series of lights that are continuously on or blinking , and that is how we will know if we have a neighbor stealing our Internet.
Depending on your router, you will see how a light will be continuously blinking, which is usually the WiFi or Lan light. These lights are blinking because the router has traffic and is being used, and will blink faster as they have more traffic. If you turn off all the devices you have connected to your router, and still see these lights blink rapidly , you know that someone outside of your home is connected to your router without permission .
Find out with your PC
From your computer you can also know who is connected to your network, and you will be able to know without having to access your router to check it (we will deal with this option later). For this there are some programs that we can use and that work very well, Wireless Network Watcher being one of the most prominent for this. This program is completely free, and it is also very easy to use.
To be able to see who is connected to our router, we will only have to install it and run it, and all the equipment or devices that are connected will automatically appear . All the devices that appear will do so with a series of very interesting data, such as the name of the equipment, the IP address, the MAC address, etc.
You can also use your mobile
If you don’t want to use any computer to check who’s connected to your router, you’ll be happy to know that you can use your smartphone for that . In the application stores there are also a series of apps available that will allow us to know from our smartphone which devices are connected to our network in a matter of seconds.
One of the most popular that you can find on both Android and iOS is Fing. With it installed on our smartphone we can also check in a matter of seconds which devices are connected to our router. It is interesting since the type of device that is connected will appear, something that will make it much easier to identify connected devices that are not ours.
Access your router to check it
The last option we have to know who is connected to our device is to access the router itself through the computer. To do this we must use the gateway (which is usually 192.168.1.1) and use the username and password that we have established to enter. If it is the first time that we enter here we will have to use the default data that the factory router brings , and for this we will have to look at the lower part of the router, which is where this type of information comes from.
The steps that we must follow once inside the router will vary depending on the brand and model that you have at home, but the most important thing that you should know is that what you should look for is the section that indicates DHCP or DHCP Client . Within this section is where you can find all the devices connected to your router, as well as their IP address and MAC address, very important to block access to our equipment, as we will see below.
How to block unauthorized access
If you use any of these methods that we have given you a little above and you discover that someone from outside your home is connected to your router, you have the opportunity to block their access in a simple way . To do this, we are going to use the same steps that we have used to access the router a little above, since it will be from its configuration that we will have to do it.
As we have told you before, the steps to follow to block someone will depend a lot on the device we have. In some of them it will be possible to restrict their access from the DHCP window itself, but if this is not your case what you should do is look for a security tab and access what is known as MAC filtering . All computers and devices have a unique MAC address that acts as an identifier, and through it we will have no problem blocking any unidentified access.
Some routers have the ability to establish a MAC filter of two types, in such a way that we can create a black list (putting those MAC addresses that we want to block) or a white list (addresses that we allow to connect). If you want to prevent someone you don’t want from connecting, it’s best to establish a white list if you can, since then you will be the only person who controls who can and who cannot connect to your router.
