Seriously people stop using "password" as your wifi password

I helped my neighbor set up his router last weekend and his network name was literally "Home" and the password was "password123". I told him that's basically leaving your front door wide open in this neighborhood. Anyone with a laptop and 5 minutes could hop on his network and see everything he's doing. He just shrugged and said nobody would bother. Has anyone else dealt with friends or family who just refuse to take basic wifi security seriously?

3 comments

3 Comments

west.anna1mo agoTop Commenter

I used to be that person honestly. Back when I lived in an apartment I set my wifi password to "letmein" because I figured nobody was gonna bother cracking a random apartment network. Then I had a buddy who works in IT come over and he showed me how easy it is to pull up someone's traffic on the same network with basic tools. That freaked me out enough to change it to something actually secure. My neighbor still uses "password" for everything and I keep telling him it only takes one bad actor on the block to mess with his stuff. I get it now, it's not about being paranoid, it's about not making yourself the easiest target on the street.

patriciap522mo ago

Just rename it to "FBI Surveillance Van" and watch how fast he changes that password.

the_angela2mo ago

Double down and set the SSID to "FBI Surveillance Van 2.0" with a password hint that says "ask the agent parked outside". People get weirdly Paranoid about their WiFi names, and changing it to something vaguely menacing will make him recheck his locks every night for a week.