Good security advice is you should (must) change the default password on your home broadband router. Recent experience suggests to me this is not sufficient.
As you would expect, when my new router arrived I changed the password (a bit of a saga in its own right). I also changed various other parameters to lock it down a bit more and customise for my environment. One change was to change the default wireless access point name – this turned out to be a crucial change.
After several months of working well, my Internet access failed. I rebooted the router, still access failed – my devices could not find the wireless access point. Some head scratching followed, eventually to discover the router has somehow reset itself to factory settings (googling suggested this is a relatively common occurrence, and I’ve ruled out foul play).
So, the default password was back. My router was exposed.
Consequently the lesson I learnt was changing the default password was not enough – changing a critical parameter like the Wireless Access Point name was crucial too. Why? Because if I had not done so, I would have blissfully continued to use my router thinking all was well, when in fact it was sitting on the Internet with a default password.
Why not check your router now, to make sure it has not reset to default.
Once Upon a Camayoc 