How to Check If Someone is Using Your Wi-Fi

Are you noticing sudden drops in the speed of your Wi-Fi connection? Is the internet speed slower than what you are used to? Maybe you cannot identify the source of this slowdown, especially when everything is working fine from your ISP’s end. Chances are, someone may be using your Wi-Fi connection without your permission. With a few simple steps, you can find out if someone has been using your Wi-Fi illegitimately. Let’s look at the things that you can do.

Disconnect All Devices

There’s a fast and straightforward way to tell if your Wi-Fi is being used by someone without your awareness. If you are a layman when it comes to routers and network connections, this will be an ideal method for you to try out.

1. Unplug every device that connects to Wi-Fi in your house. We need to make sure that those devices are disconnected from your Wi-Fi.

2. Now check if you can still see flickering lights on the router.

3. If the lights continue to flash, chances are, someone is likely to be using your Wi-Fi without permission.

Check With an App

Your Android device can come extremely handy while trying to figure out who is using your Wi-Fi. These apps make it simpler for you by automatically scanning the network to reveal its users. Most of such apps are available for free. One such fantastic app to use is Fing; it is available on iOS as well as Android.

1. Download the Fing app from Google Play or Apple App Store.

2. Now click on the option saying Scan for devices

3. The app will run a quick scan of your Wi-Fi network

4. A list will be displayed when you can see all the connected devices to your Wi-Fi. Look for any device that you don’t recognise.

Checking Administrator Logs

If you feel confident about digging into your router’s administrator logs, you can have a detailed look at the devices that recently connected to your router. The logs menu may be different for distinct routers, but more or less these are based on the same format. You may need to dig a bit deeper for finding these exact options.

1. Login to the admin panel of your router

2. You need to look for a page that lists the Mac addresses which are connected with your router and then cross-check them if they are the same number of devices that you have in your home.

3. It is worth noting that your administrator logs will also contain any previously connected device-data that you may not recognise. However, you may want to look into the administrator logs for understanding in-depth details about your Wi-Fi usage.

 So these are some of the best and easiest ways to check if your Wi-Fi is being used without your permission. You don’t need to be an expert in network connections or routers to follow through these steps, a little bit of digging in can reveal the source of your Wi-Fi slow down so that you can take further actions accordingly. If you identify any unrecognised device connected to your network, the first step should be to change your Wi-Fi password. You may also want to change the type of encryption used in your Wi-Fi password.

Source:-   Someone is Using Your Wi-Fi