Basic Security in Wireless Networks

Disabling Remote Management

Some routers come with the remote management option enabled by default. This option allows anyone to access the router control panel from the Internet. For example, let’s assume that the public IP address your Internet provider gave you is 69.69.69.69. If remote management is turned on, anyone on the Internet pointing his/her browser to your IP address (e.g., https://69.69.69.69) will have access to your router control panel (you will have a password enabled so the hacker will actually see the login screen). Of course this the most potential entry point to your network and that is why you should disable remote management, unless you are 100% sure you need this option (some technicians will leave this option turned on so they can manage their clients’ network remotely – they will need to know their public IP address, of course).
A very powerful trick in using remote management is changing the connection port. For example, if you change the connection port to 8081, people trying to open your IP address without entering this port number on their request (e.g., https://69.69.69.69) won’t be able to access to the control panel. To access the control panel remotely, you will need to enter a colon and the port number (e.g., https://69.69.69.69:8081), creating a difficulty layer to the remote access.
The exact location where you configure remote management depends on your router model and brand. On the router we were using, this option was available under the “Administration” option, on the same screen where we change the administrative password. See the option “Remote Management” in Figure 1 presented in the previous page, where we disabled this option.