On another Mac, I went to Dashboard today and noticed that I have a widget which shows all wireless routers in the vicinity. I don't even remember downloading that - it must have been in the first burst of enthusiasm when that Mac was brand new.
As I watched, it came up with 5 or 6 other wireless routers, all a telecoms provider, then mine, Netgear.
Some of the other routers were Padlocked. Mine is not.
First be sure the unknown widget is giving you correct information. Go to System Preferences > Network and in the left hand pane of the Network window select Wi-Fi, then click on the
Advanced button near the bottom right of that window. The at the top of the Wi-Fi window select the Wi-Fi tab. this will reveal a list of
Preferred Networks and what security, such as WPA2, WPA2 Personal, or WEP is enabled on each. If your network is not secure this will tell you and if it is it will tell you what specific security algorithm is in use on your network. If you are curious about what all these mean, check
this Wikipedia article for more information.
An aside: While you are in the Network preferences pane near the bottom center of the window is a checkbox labeled
Show Wi-Fi status in menu bar. If this box is checked on the menu bar at the top of your screen toward the right hand side the network icon — a series of radiating arcs — will appear. Clicking on this icon will show essentially the same information as the widget.
1. AFAI can recall, I changed the default admin password for my router to a long string of upper+lower case characters and non alphabetic characters too. I seem to remember being very pleased about this personal (to me) string.
You answered your own question. "I changed the default admin password for my router" which is exactly that, the admin password for your router. This is the password that allows you to access the router itself to do things like configure the network including setting the security type and establishing the network password.
2. I live in a very rural area; not a big city.
Your definition of rural is different from mine if you are within range of that many Wi-Fi networks.
3. Most importantly: I am exceedingly reluctant to change any of my router settings. This router connects all 4 Macs + printer together, and (obviously) is our collective way out to the internet.
4. It's just paranoia, yes? Just because I happened to see on the widget that this router is not padlocked. What's the worst that can happen, leaving it like that?
IMO it is not just paranoia.
- At the very least you are subject to anyone and everyone in the vicinity stealing network bandwidth. That may not seem like much, but it can slow down your network response time and if the ISPs on your side of the pond are anything like some of those in this country, enough stolen bandwidth could result in the ISP electing to "throttle" or slow down your bandwidth.
- A nefarious person could potentially attach to your open network and use your internet connection to distribute malware, spam, or porn without your knowledge. On this side of the pond that could result in your computers being confiscated and held as evidence until it is proven the bandwidth theif was the culprit
- If your network is open it becomes much easier for melefactors to get into your network and hack into your computers for ilicit purposes — or just for the sport of proving they can do it.
You will have to configure your router to establish a secure network and give the network a password. Then you will have to use that password to log into the network from all four of your computers. Both are essentially a one time operation because your computers will store the password in Keychain and automatically use it to logon to the network in the future.
