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 to a website, when you lose the password to your wireless network (i.e. your 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 an desktop, laptop, Mac, iPhone, PC, Windows or Android, you can hack your wifi password using this guide.
Read: Best Wifi Router 2018
Table of Contents:
- Things You’ll Need
- Method 1: Login to Change It
- Method 2: Hard Reset the Router
- How To Set Up A New WiFi Password After A Hard Reset
Things You’ll Need
- An ethernet cable long enough to reach from a laptop or computer to your router
- A small paperclip or pushpin
Method 1: Login to Change It
The first step in recovering your WiFi’s 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 login into your router’s dashboard and change the WiFi password (hopefully to something more memorable).
1. First, look at the bottom of your router.
On the the bottom you should find an IP address that looks like this: 10.0.0.1, 192.168.1.1
2. Plug in the ethernet cable
Plug one end of the ethernet cable in to 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.
3. Open Up a Web Browser (Safari, Chrome, etc)
Then punch in the IP (the 192.168.1.1 or 10.0.0.1) address into the browser’ (Chrome, etc) URL bar. Once you do, you should be greeted with a screen that looks like what you see above.
4. Enter the User Name
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.
5. Once Logged In
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”.
6. Enter the Password
Enter the password you wish to change it to (usually twice for confirmation), and the router should reset itself.
7. Final Step
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.
Method 2: Hard Reset the Router
The second method of getting yourself back online is to hard reset the router.
1. Grab a paperclip or pushpin
To start, grab a small paperclip or pushpin.
2. Look to the Back of the Router
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.
3. Hold the Reset Button
Hold this button for about 30 seconds to one minute, until you see the the lights on the front of the unit flash once before eventually rebooting.
4. Success
Congratulations, you’ve just taken the router all the way 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.
5. Add Security NOW
Work quickly to get your WPA2 network back online with a new password (see below instruction), and you’re done!
How To Set Up A New WiFi Password After A Hard Reset
After you reset the router, you’ll need to log back into the wireless network to re-establish the settings that were lost.
1. Locate the Router Default WiFi Name
Start by finding into the default name for the WiFi (this usually takes the form of some variation on the manufacturer’s name, “Dlink3896” for example), and connecting your device to it.
2. Log Back into the Router
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
3. What You Should See
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.
4. Create a New Password, Personalize Your Router
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.
5. Login with the New Password
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 awhile – 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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