What are the risks of someone highjacking your wireless router signal?

They steal your bandwidth and can make pages load slow and crappy.

I knew of someone that had a neighbor hijack their wireless signal and put a password on it so they couldn’t use their own router! I am computer illiterate too, so I don’t know of any other ramifications.

If they do something illegal (like set up a server for child porn or pirated software) it comes back to you as the owner of the IP address. I believe the jury is still out on whether you would be held responsible, but I wouldn’t risk it. Plus, as already stated, you’ll not get all the bandwidth that you’re paying for.

Depending on your computer/firewall security, a person logging on to your wireless network may be able to see or access your hard drive. It’s for this reason and the chance they could be downloading illegal files (your ISP would hold you accountable) that I would password protect my network.

Be sure to change your router password, too, because most come with a default username/password that is pretty commonly known.

All routers include security options, so you are covered no matter what you buy.

It can be turned on an off, there are some options, but the setup software will probably handle that for you.

If not, ask us how to work it!

So, if your neighbours are trustworthy, the only risk is of people driving by to steal your connection? That risk isn’t that big, is it?

@Vincentt The people driving by could also possibly access your files, steal passwords as you type on the web…

Agreed, the risk isn’t big. But I don’t see a downside to turning on the security.

@jaytkay No, I just wanted to know that for a dispute I had a long while ago, where I had a wireless card that could only handle WEP security while my mom’s then SO insisted to use WPA, meaning I had to buy a new card. :)

You can put people you want to share with specifically….but really what’s the big deal.

I think Hijacking is pretty strong language..that;s just me though