Preventing unauthorizes access to router

[KOA]

What measure other than changing the password, I can take to prevent access to router.

 

[teknojnky]

depends on the router, some you can limit admin to certain IP addresses or MAC addresses.

others you can't do anything other than change the password

 

[stevech]

What measure other than changing the password, I can take to prevent access to router.

Many consumer routers have settings for
1) Enable router admin login from WAN (Internet) side. Advise: Disable
2) Enable router admin login from WiFi: Advise: Disable

So admin only from a computer connected by ethernet to a LAN port.

Some others (e.g., my Cradlepoint MBR900) allow TLS or SSL remote admin via the Internet. If you MUST do remote access, this might be OK.

 

[KOA]

Thanks I will go for the mac based approach.

 

[00Roush]

Just remember that MAC addresses can be cloned by others so while this method does help it can be bypassed.

00Roush

 

[KOA]

Can we do it this way, as admin is on the wifi side(only wifi user) we can only enable admin access from wifi only, along with mac add.

 

[00Roush]

You can setup the router to allow admin from a wireless connection and use MAC address filtering. Just realize that overall it is considered to be less secure than limiting admin access to computers just on the LAN. This is because it is not too difficult for someone to spoof or clone the MAC address of a wireless computer that does have access. Just want to make you aware of the security risk.

This does become a moot point though if someone cannot even connect to your wireless network. For someone to access the router from wireless they first have to get through the wireless security and connect to the network. If you are running WPA2 with AES and a nice long password you shouldn't really have much to worry about as it is fairly secure.

As for limiting router admin access to just wireless computers I am not sure if most routers support that. Generally I think most routers support LAN+WIFI or just LAN for router admin access.

On a side note I have found another way to access the router from wireless but still keep it disabled on the router. Use remote desktop. In my case I connect to my Win 2008 Server and then open IE to my routers webpage.

00Roush