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Your router may suffer a DDoS attack

Our router is undoubtedly a very important piece for surfing the net. This means that we must protect it at all times and not make mistakes that could hinder its proper functioning.

In this article we talk about DDoS attacks against a router. We are going to explain what it consists of, how it could affect us and, most importantly, what to do to avoid being victims of this problem.

What is a DDoS attack

First of all, we are going to explain what a DDoS attack that can affect our network devices consists of. And yes, it can affect a home router too. This is a threat that consists of causing a distributed denial of service. Something that could seriously damage the proper functioning of our connections and make navigation impossible.

Basically, the attack consists of generating a large number of requests, a large flow of information, from different points to the same device. This can affect a web server, for example, and take that site out of service. But the same could also happen with our router. You could receive multiple requests and not be able to respond, thus affecting the operation.

This cyber attack is relatively common. It is usually through a botnet and is capable of consuming resources such as bandwidth or available space, altering the configuration, interrupting the service, etc. It is widely used to bring down a web page or online service, something that could leave many users without access for hours and cause significant economic losses.

How to avoid DDoS attacks on the router

All of this makes it very important to avoid DDoS attacks on the router. It is essential to protect this device and thus reduce the risk that other connected equipment may be left without service or be attacked by third parties.

We must bear in mind that if our router suffers a DDoS attack it could become part of a botnet and attack other computers, collapse our network and make it impossible to navigate and even compromise the security of other devices that are connected.

Update the router firmware

Undoubtedly something that cannot be missing to properly protect any computer is to keep it updated. We must make sure we have the latest version of the router's firmware. There are many vulnerabilities that may be present. Many flaws that in one way or another are exploited by hackers to carry out attacks.

Therefore, we must always make sure that we have the router updated with the latest version available. It is something that we must apply to any other network device that we have, such as the network card itself, Wi-Fi repeaters, etc. Of course, we must make sure that we are installing the latest versions only from official sources and thus avoid problems that may affect us on the other hand.

strong>Change factory settings

One issue that many users overlook is changing the factory settings on devices. We not only talk about the importance of avoiding DDoS attacks on the router, but also any type of threat against any device connected to the network.

Normally any network equipment will have a factory configuration. With this we refer to the name, password, parameters that we can configure ... If we leave the ones that come when buying it, we can be victims of attacks. A cybercriminal could know how to attack a certain router model, for example.

Therefore, to avoid DDoS attacks and other security problems, it is very important that we always change the factory settings. We must change any information that identifies a team or that could be used against us. the less clues we give to cybercriminals, the better for us.

Use a strong password for Wi-Fi

Of course we must create a password for the Wi-Fi that is strong and prevents the entry of intruders. It should have letters (uppercase and lowercase), numbers, and other special symbols. All this must be random and also the key must be unique and not being used in any other service or device.

But beyond the Wi-Fi password, it is also very important to change the password to access the router. We must take into account the same thing that we mentioned above. It is another security barrier that protects us against DDoS attacks. Many users do not change the password and leave the default password when purchasing the device. That is a mistake and could leave control to any intruder with the right knowledge.

Use encryption that is not outdated

The encryption for the Wi-Fi password that we are going to use is very important that it is current, that it is not an obsolete one such as WEP encryption, which can be exploited with the appropriate knowledge and would not properly protect our network. There are many tools that can break the security of passwords that are based on this that we mentioned, that have known vulnerabilities and flaws.

It is important that we always use a current encryption, of guarantees. Modern routers have WPA-3 encryption, which is the latest and most secure. Otherwise we must use WPA-2. As long as we have the updated equipment, it is still a secure encryption.

Enable security measures in settings

One more issue to take into account is to activate additional security measures that may be in the router. Depending on the model, when entering the configuration we can find different options that could improve security and reduce the risk of attacks. It will depend on the type of router and the firmware that we have installed, but the normal thing is that we find a wide range of options that we can take into account.

Date update on 2021-06-02. Date published on 2021-06-02. Category: Computer class Author: Oscar olg Fuente: redeszone