Home Networks & Wi-Fi · Inside Your Router · Lesson 5 of 5

Challenge: Grandma's Old Router

Help Grandma check her old router, find a stranger, and pick a new one.

The box in the hall closet

You are visiting your grandma, Ruth. She says her internet has been slow for months. She also heard on the news that old routers can be hacked.

You find her router on a shelf in the hall closet. It is dusty and the lights are blinking. She bought it herself at a store, and nobody has touched it since.

You turn it over. The sticker shows the network name, the Wi-Fi password, the model number and an address: 192.168.1.1. It also lists an admin user name and password.

Your laptop is already on her Wi-Fi. You want to see the router's settings.

A name nobody knows

You sign in and open the connected devices list. You see Grandma's tablet, her phone and her TV. There is also "ESP_7B21D0" and a phone called "PHONE-4C2E".

Grandma has a smart plug on her lamp. You unplug it, and the ESP device disappears. Mystery one solved.

But nobody in the house owns that phone. Grandma admits her Wi-Fi password is still the one on the sticker, and the sticker faces the window.

No updates since 2016

Next you open the firmware page. It says the last update was in 2016, and there is no automatic update setting.

You look up the model number on the maker's website. A note says the model is no longer supported and will not get any more updates.

You remember the FBI warning about criminals taking over routers like this.

Picking the replacement

Grandma agrees it is time for a new router. At the store, she wants something simple. She doesn't want to think about it again for a long time.

The shelf is full of boxes with big speed numbers and lots of antennas. You check each box for the things that keep a router safe.