How to Be Careful When Sharing WiFi Password With QR Code

Nowadays, sharing WIFI passwords with a guest is easy. Just share the QR code from your phone with your guest. He/she can point their camera to the QR image, and voila !!! We are connected.

There is a common mistake we make that can lead to dire consequences in extreme conditions. Here in this post, let’s discuss on that and how to avoid this mistake.

The process, for those who don’t know it

Go to your phone settings, then go to connectivity or WIFI settings. If your phone is not very old, it will show an option like generating QR Code. Here is an example of my old Galaxy Note 9. Most android phones will have the configuration in the same place.

See this link to do it on iPhones.

While sharing the WIFI password, we must keep in mind that your guest will have the password indefinitely and can reach all your network devices. Your smart switches, fans, computers, everything. Now, if you have printed the QR code and put it on the wall, anyone will also have access to your network from outside.

Never share your main network

So we should never share our main network password as a QR code; rather, enable your guest network in your router and share it.

As the guest network cannot access any network devices, you can be tension free; even if they have access to your guest network, they cannot access any of your devices.

Only share guest network

In all modern routers, there is a guest network settings. Enable it, and give it a strong password. Here is an example of my Netgear router.

Then disable the network device access for the guest network.

Connect to the guest network from your phone, take the QR code and print it. In this way, you don’t have to reconnect to the guest from your phone anytime your guest wants to connect to your router. Just show them the printer QR code.

Put the print on your wall and turn it back to your main network.

That’s it. Happy sharing wifi.

Previously published