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So the inevitable question is: how to hack your WiFi and recover your router’s password? Is there software that can help, or a trick? Read on to find out.
We’ve all done it before; you write down your router’s password on a Post-It, stick it somewhere, and then as soon as you need it, it has disappeared.
While the above scenario can play out as a minor annoyance when trying to login into a website when you lose the password to your wireless network (i.e. your best router) things can get a little more complicated. Because the password is hidden in the router itself, it’s not as simple as just asking someone to email you a reset code.
Whether you have a desktop, laptop, Mac, iPhone, PC, Windows, or Android, you can hack your wifi password using this guide. This isn’t the same as setting up a wireless router, which is a different guide.
Read: Why does my WiFi router keep turning off?
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The first step in recovering your WiFi password also happens to be the easiest, and it’s also what you should always try to do before resorting to any more severe measures, or method 2, seen below. In this method you’ll log in to your router’s dashboard and change the WiFi password (hopefully to something more memorable).
On the bottom, you should find an IP address that looks like this: 10.0.0.1, 192.168.1.1
Plug one end of the ethernet cable into your laptop or computer (you can hack your wifi on a PC or MAC), and the other end directly into one of the ports on the back of the router – it shouldn’t matter what port.
Then punch in the IP (the 192.168.1.1 or 10.0.0.1) address into the browser’s (Chrome, etc) URL bar. Once you do, you should be greeted with a screen that looks like what you see above.
At this prompt, you’ll need to enter the other username and password you used when you first logged into the router to run the initial wireless setup. By default this can be any combination of “admin/password” or “admin/admin”, depending on the make or model. Keep in mind, that this isn’t the same name that you change on your WiFi network.
Once you’ve logged in, you can click over to the “Wireless” panel to find the WPA2 key that you set up originally. Although it won’t usually display on this window (it can be obfuscated to protect from unauthorized users gaining access), you should see a field of entry that reads something similar to “New password”.
Enter the password you wish to change it to (usually twice for confirmation), and the router should reset itself.
Once that process completes, all computers using the old password will be kicked off the network, and you can re-enter it accordingly on your wireless devices and computer.
But what do you do I do if Method 1 didn’t work? Continue to Method 2.
The second method of getting yourself back online is to hard reset the router.
To start, grab a small paperclip or pushpin.
Look on the back of your router, and you should see somewhere near the ethernet ports a very small hole with the word “RESET” above it. Once located, you’ll need to push the paperclip into the hole until you feel a small button press down.
Hold this button for about 30 seconds to one minute, until you see the lights on the front of the unit flash once before eventually rebooting.
Congratulations, you’ve just taken the router back to its stock setting. The router will no longer have the wireless ID you gave it, nor will the connection be password protected (or it will be protected by a default login and password, such as “password”. It’s recommended you have as few computers on the network as possible at this point because this is when your house will be the most vulnerable to an attack.
Work quickly to get your WPA2 network back online with a new password (see the below instruction), and you’re done!
After you reset the router, you’ll need to log back into the wireless network to re-establish the settings that were lost.
Start by finding the default name for the WiFi (this usually takes the form of some variation on the manufacturer’s name, “Dlink3896” for example), and connect your device to it.
Once this is complete, log back in using the same IP address (192.168.1.1 or 10.0.0.1) in a browser window that got you in the first method
From here everything will be set back to default, meaning your router’s password will have to be some variation of “admin/password”, “admin/admin”, or nothing in the credentials field at all.
Once logged in, click the Wireless tab, where you’ll see the option to rename the default SSID, as well as create a new password. These can be set back to the same identifiers you had established before the reset, and once the new information is in (make sure your password is at least 8-characters long before quitting), click the “Save” option, at which point the router will reboot itself one more time.
After completing step 4 (above), you should be kicked off the WiFi – after all, it’s now password protected and you’ve given it another name. This is when you search for the newly-password protected wireless network that you chose, and log in using that new WiFi Password to regain access to the Internet!
Everyone forgets their password to their wireless router every once in a while – it happens to the best of us. And now thanks to this guide, the next time it happens on your WiFi networks at home you’ll have all the tricks you need in your arsenal to hack your wifi, recover your password and get the control back in your hands.
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