Five router settings worth checking once a year

Routers are installed once and then forgotten, which is understandable and mostly harmless. The exceptions are a short list, and reviewing them on a schedule is a reasonable substitute for thinking about them at all.

The annual review

• Firmware. Confirm automatic updates are enabled, and check whether the model still receives them at all. Equipment past its support window stops receiving security fixes even though it keeps working.
• The administrator password. This is separate from the network password. If it is still the string printed on the label, change it and record the new one somewhere durable.
• Encryption mode. Prefer the most current option your devices support. Older modes are widely understood to be weak and should only be used if a specific device genuinely requires it.
• Remote administration. If you do not deliberately manage the router from outside the home, this should be off.
• The connected device list. Unfamiliar entries are usually a forgotten appliance rather than an intruder, but the list is the only place you would ever notice.

A word on guest networks

A separate guest network is a genuinely useful piece of household hygiene. It keeps visitors, and the growing population of internet-connected appliances, on a segment that cannot reach the laptop holding your tax records. Naming it plainly and giving it its own password costs nothing.

None of this is exotic work. It is the network equivalent of checking a smoke alarm: unglamorous, quick, and much easier to do on a calendar reminder than in response to a problem.