I think someone's stealing my wifi, please help?

Question

It's long, sorry but..
Since March we've been going over on our internet usage and we're on the same package, my mum didn't have her computer until April and I rarely used mine, if anything I'd say we've cut down because I'm no longer using my phone on it ect. and my brother also rarely uses his laptop, but we've someone gone over 55GB which has cost us £50.00! I've only just clocked on, so I found my IP address, typed it into the url thing and everything and then it asked for an admin key, which is on the back of my home hub. I haven't changed this and everyone else in my house is hopeless with technology, but somehow it had changed so I had to reset my router.
does this sound like wifi stealing and how can I stop it for good?
I've changed the name of my router thing, and made the password hard, anything else?
THANKS FOR READING TEHE

Answer 1

you have done the major bit, you can still set it not to broadcast your ssid too



if it actually is a wifi thief the chances are that the person who has been stealing your wifi has been in the house and has seen the password on the back of the router (home hub) or a neighbour has too much time on thire hands. it may not be some one else are you sure no one has been downloading Torrents or something at home?



Home Hub.... i assume its a BT home hub, if im right then there is a log that it keeps why dont you log in and have a look at it, and/or you should (depending on the model of your home hub) be able to set it to only allow access to PC's and Devices that have specific mac address (mac address are unique ID cards for anything that can connect to a network) so you can allow access to your own systems and no one else.



Edit: you can also set a Data Limit on some of them so if it dose happen again you wont get a hefty charge.

Answer 2

You need to use a WPA2 password. WEP can be cracked within minutes by AirCrack-NG or any number of wireless packet sniffer programs--doesn't matter how "hard" your password is in that case.



Ignore any advice telling you to do MAC-address whitelisting or hiding your SSID. Neither is effective against crackers.

Answer 3

think you can set in router settings to only allow connections from your chosen mac addresses . you could also change password every now and again. there is software people can use to automatically crack the password. maybe you could make your ssid invisible..

Answer 4

Put it on a power strip so it's easy to shut off, and flip it off whenever nobody's using it. Also, maybe somebody's recruited you as a spambot, and you're sending OUT all that data, so check outgoing, and clean your machines.

Answer 5

Use WPA and a secure password

Answer 6

you can make your wireless name(ssid) invisible so anyone outside cannot see your connection