How to know who is connected to my router - all ways

One of the main concerns of a user with a Wi-Fi router is that their connection is being stolen. In this tutorial we are going to discover who is connected to my router, so that nobody takes advantage of our Wi-Fi without our consent.

Index of contents

We know that there are a large number of programs, especially Linux-based ones capable of hacking our Wi-Fi password, even with WPA encryption. But as owners of the connection that we are, we will not only discover who is consuming it, but we will block it so that it can never enter again.

Do we suspect that someone "steals" the Internet from us?

Currently, practically all users who connect to the Internet have a Wi-Fi router at home, one that, in addition to giving us access to the network via cable, also does so wirelessly.

Wi-Fi is one of the great advantages and comforts of our time, more and more secure and with greater coverage and speeds in our internal WLAN network, even higher than the wired network. But despite the efforts, there will always be programs like Wifipass, AirCrack, Reaver, etc. They are used by many users to try to crack our password to access the Internet through us without paying a penny.

We can not prevent them from trying to steal our Wi-Fi, but we can stop their attempts by discovering them infraganti and even putting a precious MAC block on them to stop their attempts. Let's think that once they access Wi-Fi, they could also do it to the router itself and take over it, at least until we restart it.

And is that the routers provided by Internet providers are quite basic, and even come from the factory with very weak passwords and access to the firmware with admin / admin that we never bother to change and strengthen. Make no mistake, most of the blame for them entering is our fault for not worrying about adding more security to our network.

First evidence that the Internet is being stolen

Without doing practically nothing we can know quite accurately that someone is connected to our router. The first way to notice it is that our network is slower, we connect and we notice that the download is slower and that it costs more to access YouTube pages and videos.

This will only be assumptions until we look at the router's status LEDs, if it's clear to you. What we must do is disconnect all the wireless devices from our Wi-Fi and leave it free.

Next we go to it and check if the Wi-Fi LED blinks constantly. If it does blink, it is that some device is using the network. If, on the other hand, it remains in constant light, it will indicate that it is free.

Be careful because this is not 100% reliable, so the best thing to do is to start now with the matter at hand, knowing who is connected to my router with accurate data and information.

Know who is connected to my router from PC

For now we are not going to access our router to discover possible imposters, since we can use free applications. And the most famous, complete and easy to use is Wireless Network Watcher, which is free and distributed by NirSoft.

The interface of the page is not too friendly, but we will easily find the App at the bottom of the page or by downloading it directly from here. If we want a Spanish translation, we can look it up in the table at the bottom of the page or download it from here.

Installation is as simple as clicking on everything next, opening after being installed. If we want to translate it into Spanish, we will place the previously downloaded configuration file in this directory:

C: \ Program Files (x86) NirSoft \ Wireless Network Watcher

The program will automatically detect it and translate it.

When we open the program, it will automatically start scanning the entire internal network of our router. That is, it will detect the IP address of the gateway, and from it it will scan the entire range of the hosts part to detect the connected clients.

None will escape you, since the IP address must necessarily belong to this range. The information will be refreshed every so often. In it we can see a lot of things:

• IP: the unique identifier that the router has given the device to connect to the Internet. Keep in mind that the first one will always be the router with an IP address that will end in 1, so this connection will be 100% reliable. Name: network name of the device on the network, which may ultimately be your DNS. You may or may not have it. MAC address: surely the most important information that the program will give us, since the MAC is the unique identifier of the connected device. There will be no other like it and it will always be fixed on that device. Although we can change the MAC of a device if we know how to do it. Extra information: such as detections of the program, and data about the equipment.

In this program we can configure notifications to know when a device is connected and when it leaves, but unfortunately we do not have the possibility to block it. In short, we are mere clients connected to the router, so we can only do this from itself.

This application is not available for MacOS computers. So we can use a very similar and also free called LanScan. It does exactly the same, being one of the best known by users.

See who is connected to my router from the mobile

If we do not have a PC at hand at the moment or we want to feel like advanced users even if we are not, then we will carry out the same procedure from our smartphone. We all have one on us at all times, so let's see how to do it.

We will access our Google Play Store if we are on Android as is our case, although it is also available for iOS. We will look for a free application called Fing - Network Scanner. It is one of the best valued by users and most downloaded, although we can choose others. Like the complete IP Tools that does much more than finding users connected to the router, or Who ?, another very similar network scanner.

We will download and install the application. This will ask us for some premises such as location, we can decide whether to accept it or not. It will not be necessary to create a user account in it, although it is assumed that with it we will obtain more information and options.

In this App we will be seeing basically the same as in the case of Windows, that is, the devices connected with their IP addresses and also their MAC addresses. For more details, we only have to click on each device to take us to a new window.

This application, like Windows, does not have too many extra options, so if we wanted to do something else we recommend IP Tools. From it, in addition to seeing the connection structure of our network, it will also allow us to Ping, solve NDS, Traceroute to see the jumps until we reach our destination on the Internet, and more interesting options. Even a real-time monitor of the Wi-Fi coverage of the signals we have.

See who is connected from the router itself

Finally we are going to see all these connections from our own router. At this point we should know how to access our router knowing its IP address and also the user and password to access it.

Know router IP

With the help of the previous programs we have already been able to know the IP address of the router. However, we will carry out the way to discover it through Windows Command Prompt.

To do this, we just have to open the start menu and write " CMD ". Pressing Enter we will get the Windows command window, in which we will write the following:

ipconfig

We will look for the section where our network connection is defined, normally it will be in " Wi-Fi Adapter " or " Ethernet Adapter"

The address that concerns us is the " Default Gateway ", this will be the IP of our router.

Now it only remains to go to any web browser, place it and access with our username and password. These credentials should be on a sticker under the router, in the instructions or it could be provided by our Internet provider if we contact him.

View host IP list on the router

The example will be carried out with an ASUS brand router. The procedure will vary according to the router, since it will depend on the design of its firmware, but in all or almost all cases we will have this function.

With this type of router it is easy to obtain this information, since on the main screen we have a fairly complete and interactive network map. We only have to click on the " Clients " button to see all those connected.

If we click on one of the MAC addresses of the equipment, we will see more information about the connection. Among them the time it has been connected, the signal strength as well as the band in which it is connected.

We can also see in this case the bandwidth consumption of the connected devices. We will have this information in the adaptive QoS section, being excellent information to see if, in addition to having intruders, they are actively consuming our bandwidth.

How to know if the connected equipment is ours

Okay, we already know all the ways to see who is connected to our router from any device, even from the router. But what if the information you give us is not enough to know if it is our team ?

Well, the easiest thing will be to apply the ingenious technique of the "old woman's account", the one that never fails. With the list of devices clearly visible, we are going to disconnect or turn off each of those that we have connected to the router.

You will see that the list will decrease. While doing this, it is best to write down the MAC and associated device so that it can be easily identified. When all are turned off, only those who are beyond our control will remain, that is, the intruders.

Keep in mind that if we have an access point to extend Wi-Fi or a meshed network with multiple routers, these will also appear in this list with their own MAC and IP.

Lock a device from the router

Since we are inside our router, it will surely offer us, among other things, the possibility of blocking any device that is connected to it. As before, the available option will depend on the firmware, but rest assured that it will be, because it is quite basic today.

Continuing with the example of the Asus router, we will return to the main page and view the connected equipment in the network map option " Clients ".

Here we will have to click on the suspicious device so that a pop-up window appears.

In which case we will turn ON the option that says "Block Internet Access". And with this it would already be, the device whose MAC appears in the list will be blocked until we consider it appropriate and without Internet access.

What if the client changes MAC or hides it?

It is possible that the user trying to get into our network has enough knowledge to mask their real MAC address. Or even that you may have changed it, since this is possible through free programs.

What would we do then? Well in this case there would be no choice but to monitor the network from time to time and see if the same device accesses it with a different MAC and block it again. The best defense in this case is to configure our password and user credentials for.

Shield our network and our router by updating passwords

And the last obligatory application advice that we give you is that against recent attacks, it is best to update our Wi-Fi password with the maximum protection available in the firmware of the router. In addition we will choose a strong key, and with enough variety of characters that its decryption is torture for the thief.

Every router has a section like this, in which to modify these parameters. In it we will select WPA2 encryption and we will change the password to a more secure one. If the router has two or three bands, it will have to be done in all of them. These are the types of encryption available:

• WEP: it is an encryption protocol equivalent to the cabling implemented in 1999 and abandoned in 2004 for being very vulnerable and easy to break. If we still have a WEP router, it is best to update it with a new one or choose another of the following options. WPA - Implemented in 2003 to strengthen WEP with 128-bit encryption and a 48-bit initialization vector. Two modes are offered; WPA Personal or WPA-PSK using a pre-shared key, and WPA Enterprise, which uses an authentication server to generate the key. WPA2: This is the current encryption protocol, which uses an AES engine for encryption (Advanced Encryption Standard).

Last but not least, we recommend deactivating the WPS (Wi-Fi Protected Setup) option of our Wi-Fi. This feature is a possible vulnerable door for systems that even have WPA or WPA2 implemented.

Conclusions

We have already learned everything and more about knowing who is connected to my router. There are many ways to monitor our network whether it is from the router itself or not. But the protection configuration must always be done from the router device as we have seen, in short, it is the one that provides Internet access.

Having a strong password and WPA2 encryption is very important to prevent intruders, so we should always have an eye on our team if we live in a building with many neighbors. You never know what we can find.

Now we leave you with some network tutorials to expand your knowledge:

With which program have you seen who is connected? If you have had any problems with your router, you can ask us below what you want.