How can I tell if anyone is hitching off my router?

Question

Thanks.

Answer 1

Go into the router user interface and see how many DHCP addresses it assigned. If you are the only one using the router there should be ONE! If more than that, someone is using it outside your house.

Answer 2

Not 100 percent sure, but there should be a way to log into your router configuration to see which IP addresses have accessed it. Typically, the computers accessing it are numbered 192.168.2.x where the letter x typically starts at 1 and counts up by the number of computers you have connected. Therefore, if you only have 2 computers connected through your router, you should only have a 192.168.2.1 and 192.168.2.2
Another quick way to possibly figure it out using the same system is to open a command prompt window (start/run/ type in "cmd" without quotes) and at the prompt type "ipconfig" without the quotes. You will see your IP address come up in that window. If it is something ridiculous like 192.168.2.5 then you have reason to be a bit suspicious.
Either way, if you think someone is getting into your wireless, the first thing you should do is change your security settings to something that only you and whoever else is authorized to access the router knows.

Answer 3

Did you secure your wireless using WEP/WPA/WPA2 and needed a key to log on to the network.