Apart from providing a “false sense of security” to non-IT savvy users, I still haven’t found a strong argument against hiding your SSID. Agree that strong Authentication, Encryption and Passwords are more effective security controls but adding a little bit of obscurity can only add an extra layer of “inconvenience” for the 95% out there who doesn’t even know how to use a Level 2 wireless packet analyser. Right? In other words it’s not an effective protection if used on its own but at the same time it doesn’t make your WiFi more insecure than it already may be.
I agree with you if you hide your SSID and also use strong authentication, encryption & password and every client device in your network supports a hidden SSID, then it's gonna be great! However, as mentioned in the video some devices might not even be able to connect to a hidden SSID (for example some IoT devices) because hidden SSID is not a Wi-Fi standard. Thanks.
From what I remember, if it's correct (this is from several years ago), if your device is setup to reconnect automatically like most things are, it will continually broadcast the SSID, basically asking "Are you this SSID?" everywhere it goes. With a router broadcasting the SSID, the device doesn't have to ask. Regardless, I think it makes it a slightly higher attack target, in that some people might hide their SSID and leave it open to connect to for guests or that sort of thing, thinking that since it's hidden they don't need a good password. People can see it and maybe think "Why are they trying to hide this?" and get curious about it. Having other people curious about your Wi-Fi probably isn't a good idea in general. The free phone app for Wi-Fi signal strength testing and channel usage I use also happens to show hidden networks, so no, I would not call it an added security layer in any real regard. Maybe a slight privacy one though, if you don't want most of the locals knowing what your SSID is for some reason.
As always: Great content again. As far as I know: The hiding, or selecting smart SSID, will trouble smarthome clients and hubs. Usually they need to see the SSID and they usually can connect to the 2,4 Ghz. band only.
Sunnyashtonio it is vary smart if you really think about it no said make it more complicated for any IT to spot survaillance monitoring channels . If the said is broadcasted many would reach the conclusion of a survaillance party's involvement. If someone goes to the none effective trouble to change their ssid and you see numerous networks with a hidden ssid you are looking at a non constructional survaillance monitoring system. I hope that awesered your question
Interesting & entertaining (and then some). 1st time viewer here. Will turn back time and check out your other videos. I'll be sure to skip the one where you "give us the bird" :O) This video was "SUB worthy" in the first 3 minutes. By the way you sounded spot on with your recommendations. Ringing your 🔔 seems highly likely at this point (now that sounded bad). Thank you and cheers from So.Ca.USA, 3rd House On the Right.
That IT department example you gave, made me think, what if many client devices pressed the WPS button at once, and then WPS was enabled on the router's side, would only 1 client connect, would all connect? Would be interesting to try
I could be wrong but as far as I know each time you press the WPS button it would work only for one new connection and after the connection is established the router would turn off the WPS.
I found this video because I got the following message in WiFi settings on my Mac (Mac Studio, macOS 13.0 Ventura): "Using a hidden network can expose personally identifiable information. If this is your Wi-Fi network, configure the router to broadcast this network." This was a confusing alert for me, because while I'm not an expert on networking I'm also not helpless either. My OS is making it sound like hiding a network makes it less secure, but what I'm gathering from this video is simply that it doesn't help secure a network more than it already is. I have WPA3 Personal security on my network, and it's also hidden. What's the deal, should I set my router back to broadcasting its SSID?
Hi, hide the pre-shared key from who exactly? It's not available for the public, it is only available on the wireless router and on the client who's trying to connect.
thank you for the info. i have 2 questions: 1- how important is the chipsets inside the modem/routers? many people believe that Broadcom chipsets perform better than Mediatek or other brands. should the buyer take care of the chipset? 2- i want to use my modem as media sharing device. i want to connect a HDD to it. but i am not sure how well the modem will manage the HDD. i mean, my modem is always on, so does connecting a HDD to it permanently will cause to damage to the HDD?
Let me try... 1. since WiFi communication utilizes a collection of quite standardised protocols, the chice of chipset is rather a question of performance levels and for that you better look out for device specific reviews than for chipset parameters. Chips may perform different, but in the end it's more about the package rather than about just one part of it, albeit a critical one. 2. here, too, you should refer to the manufacturer's manuals and recommendations. WD i.e. used to(?) have blue, red and black(?) labels on their HDDs to distinguish surveillance-optimized devices from those for media streaming and PC internal use. Since these are rather "felt facts" please feel free to correct and add to it.
Unfortunately I can't tell you which one is better because I havn't tested them myself, however, I can tell you which one I would choose! If the price is the same, I think I would choose AX68U mostly because its WiFi is 3x3 for both 2.4 GHz & 5 GHz compared to the AX58U which is 2x2. Thanks.
I am worried that my neighbour is trying to jam my wifi. Everytime this guy comes home my wifi no longer works, and I have to restart my router. I suspect this maybe because I myself can jam other wifis if I wanted to. Maybe I am paranoid. If Hiding my Wifi isn't gonna work then how do I prevent or maybe even catch the neighbour in the act??
It's likely that your neighbor's wifi is interfering with yours because you might be using same channels, that's why rebooting your router is temporarily fixing the issue because it would select a different channel. I would recommend to watch this video: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-S_RO92ttpMo.html
@@Behfor I tried the Wifi Analyzer app to find the best channel. By default my channel was 1 and the app showed Best channels to be 1, 5,, 8. 9. I am trying channel 5. lets see if it improves
It sounds counterintuitive but I've chatted with some hackers and they take it as a challenge to not only discover the SSID name but brute force or DOS the router to find what's so special about it.
Genuine question. How would they be able to see it was hidden in the first place? Isn't the whole point that it's undiscoverable to anyone outside of your network?
@@TrialayI Undiscoverable is a bit of a misnomer. The Wifi signal is still broadcasting. The name is simply hidden and thus not showing up when searching for new Wifi. Plenty of apps out there that sniff for radio signals in wifi spectrum. Without getting into too much detail, these apps can revel the wifi name.
