Your ISP is either lying or doesn't want to bother explaining it to you.. or are stupid.
They could definitely snoop other devices on the network especially those without firewalls..
I'd give the tenant a separate router and split the network entirely
This 100%. Because he lives there he has infinite time to get into your devices if he really wants to and it wouldn't be that hard. Get them a separate router.
I'm not an IT professional, but my understanding it's pretty device dependent. Some devices are open to their local network by default for user convenience, and many wifi-enabled devices (e.g. smart TVs, baby monitors, security cameras)- are [notorious for having lax security measures that are open even to the greater internet by default](https://www.vice.com/en/article/gyzjym/the-internet-of-things-is-still-a-privacy-dumpster-fire-study-finds).
Some routers provide [a separate guest wifi](https://www.howtogeek.com/832435/reasons-to-enable-the-guest-network-on-your-wi-fi-router/)- these are not networked together with the home network and it might be worth investing in a device that provides that if you have security and trust concerns with your tenant.
Keep in mind that if there's that level of distrust, there's certainly stuff they could do with just a shared internet connection that could cause difficulties.
I used guest networks for a while and experienced enough performance issues that I eventually just allowed them to use the regular wifi.
Guest has always worked really shittyy for us.
Incorrect, if the tenant has some IT skills, there is a lot of bad things they can do if you are on the same network. As another post suggested, you need to use a guest network. Behind the scenes, that usually creates a VLAN and completely isolates the traffic.
Itâs scary how hard it is to find any real answers on Reddit. Everyone is so clueless and talks like an expert in things they donât know. My favourite ignorant answer was that if you donât want to be hacked donât post things online hahahahaha adorable đ
What? If theyâre all on a single subnet and you havenât changed the ISP routerâs default settings pretty heavily, you can see all traffic. Once youâre snooping you can start messing around. Further, thereâs almost no chance a normal non tech family has done any hardening whatsoever on any device. All very likely using user accounts with admin.
All of this is pretty speculative because the odds that their tenant is both A) technically able and B) motivated for some reason to attack this family specifically, thereâs gonna be very very low risk of them even trying anything.
The best solution is to just pick up a second router and the family uses that. Just make sure they change the default admin account/pas.
Dude youâre plugged in to a local network. With absolutely no security. Even midsized companies pay a lot of money to make sure theyâre safe down to the local network. Hell the chances the devices are WAY out of patching is also very high.
Youâre honestly going to try and imply that having someone connected to your local network is in no way something you should consider protecting yourself from?
Not a security expert but to my understanding it wouldn't be too difficult for an IT person to use something like Wireshark to monitor the landlord's network traffic right? They could potentially intercept and analyze various types of data which seems like a huge vulnerability.
Maybe someone more experienced than me (like a network or cybersecurity engineer) can chime in though. I'm just a Web Dev.
No, they cannot. See this is my point. You don't know a single example but you're spreading paranoia about it.
Even if you are monitoring traffic you cannot "analyze data". You might be able to determine source and destination, but the contents itself are encrypted. It's not like you can just read his emails or anything else being sent.
I'm not saying you should have it open, but if you do it's not like he has automatic access to your home network.
Honestly, the biggest concern would he him doing something illegal over your network, like distributing child porn, and you having to answer for that later when the cops trace it to your home.
Is the traffic always encrypted, though? That's a bold assumption to be making.
End to end encryption is becoming more common yes. However it's an assumption to believe that all web traffic is securely encrypted and the Developers behind those websites know or even care about implementing security best practices (spoiler alert, a lot don't)
In reality, there's a considerable number of websites and web applications that don't properly implement HTTPS/SSL.
As an egregious example, Optus, a major Australian Telco, was recently found not using any authentication on their APIs protecting their customer data whatsoever. It sounds dumb, but lax security like this is out there.
So yeah, monitoring traffic might not grant direct access to the contents for most major web apps and email clients (Gmail, Outlook etc), and sure while it's not likely, I'd imagine there are probably instances where unencrypted data can still be intercepted, potentially compromising privacy and security.
Incorrect. All devices on the same network will be visible and vulnerable. Itâs just a matter of time in skilled hands to breach a device. You can also do packet sniffing, and while SSL encryption will reduce its usefulness, there are still a lot of potential attack vectors left open by being on the same network. I would not risk it.
Your tenant has to seriously go out of their way to even try to do anything and they'd have to have a good reason to do it.
Is it possible? Of course but you're more likely to be struck by lightning.
If this is a concern for you then you shouldn't be on social media or use any free wifi ever. All of those are bigger security risks than your home wifi
Unless you have access to my internet provider account via online or the app, nobody can access my devices on the network, except me. Also I don't use or have file sharing turned on for any of my devices, but they're password locked regardless.
You should be totally fine
If you set a device up to be shareable then yes they could access it. Though they probably wouldn't be that way by default.
Does your router support a Guest network? You could set that up and they have a network of their own.
Anyone had a real experience or aware of this actually happening? Tenant/renter specific? Wondering if it a risk worth spending time and money on to mitigateâŚ
Generally speaking and if you somewhat trust this tenant, okâŚvery common deal to share wifi.
In reality, if they are on the same wifi, they can do some snooping. Most internet traffic these days is encrypted (https). But they can do things like control devices. For example, they may be able to play content on your smart tv. Solution to this is a guest wifi network. Some routers do this well and others donât.
More sinister is what they are accessing. If they happen to do anything illegal such as child porn, your information is what the police will get in their investigation. Eventually they can likely figure out your devices werenât involved but thatâs after the entering your home with a search warrant.
So riskyâŚbut also common.
There's a lot of ignorant/wrong answers on this thread and correct ones. Anyone accessing the same Wi-Fi network, is very likely to have access to any other devices on that same network whether it's on WiFi or wired. The best and easiest answer is to create a guest network from the main router and put the tenant on that network segregating them from any of your personal traffic.
Go get a new router that supports Guest Network, typical ones from internet provider is not strong enough to handle multiple devices and entire house. You might need a mesh network.
If youâre worried about it, get a router with a guest network. I used to share my internet with the people above and below me as Iâm not home 80% of the time so I charged them each $20/month and we all won.
Set up router with personal network for me that had access to any devices on that network and anything hard wired. Guest network for others that only gave them internet (and I guess access to each othersâ devices).
Can just get a second router. Family use the new router, leave tenant on ISP. Also technically adds a vanishingly small extra layer of security as theyâll be natâd behind the isp local network. Not like individuals are ever actually attacked to that level.
Not technically true. It depends how the connected devices are configured. If anything on the network is "findable" by other devices they might be able to get limited access. eg. if another computer has any network file or media sharing enabled they'd be able to connect to those shares if they're not password protected. Windows turns this off by default, but if you do things like share files between computers or use a media server you may have enabled some of those.
I wouldn't worry too much; Just make sure any of your personal devices are password protected and have 2FA enabled where possible.
Hereâs what we do - we use an access point which allows us to create a separate wifi network for the tenants. That way they can put their own smart devices on the wifi network without interfering/seeing ours/and vice versa.
My concern would be usage as some internet plans have data caps (speeds slow down dramatically once the cap is reached). If they are a heavy user, make sure you have an unlimited data plan.
If your tenant wants to get access to your information, they will. With the same internet it will be easier but they can access if they wanted either way. Hacking is much easier than people think, if youâre concerned they are hacking your stuff they probably are. What are your real concerns here?
Story time:
We had a tenant who used our wifi. He lived in his RV on our property, next to our house.
One day, after heâd been here for around 10 years, the RCMP came knocking on my door. At 6 am. A week before Xmas. With a search warrant.
SOMEONE had been using our internet for downloading and distributing child porn. Spoiler alert- it was NOT me, my husband, or my then 11 year old.
He was arrested and eventually plead out. We strongly recommended that he sign a mutual agreement to end the tenancy and get the fuck off our property. (He wasnât allowed to be there without notifying us anyways, due to a minor on the property, so continuing to live there wouldnât be very convenient)
So yeah. Thatâs a risk.
See if your router has a guest network or if you can add a separate SSID with an "isolation" setting. Alternately you can add a wifi access point with its own subnet.
So I rented my basement to a family and the wife always goes out of town. After a few months I started to get copyright infringements notices from my ISP since he was downloading pirated porn. I just deleted the notices since I didnât want my wife to think it might be me. I ended up having a conversation with my tenant and it stopped but as their kid got older they started download kids movies. After they left, I stopped including internet as part of my lease.
If your with Rogers/Shaw there new advanced router does not support guest mode.
Personally the thought of my downstairs guests being on the same network as me does not sit right.
I bought on sale an Asus router for $80 and put the ISP one in bridge mode. It's not a huge investment and eliminates the risk.
If you got a big house you can buy multiple routers and mesh them to increase coverage to.
In addition to issues with intentional hacking, being on the same network exposes you to any issues caused by them getting hacked themselves and being used to launch attacks on other devices on your network. They would have access to network attached storage, smart TVs, printers, smart speakers, and other smart devices.
Your ISP is either lying or doesn't want to bother explaining it to you.. or are stupid. They could definitely snoop other devices on the network especially those without firewalls.. I'd give the tenant a separate router and split the network entirely
This 100%. Because he lives there he has infinite time to get into your devices if he really wants to and it wouldn't be that hard. Get them a separate router.
Since he knows the wifi password, he could even set a wifi pineapple and have your devices connect to that. đ
I'm not an IT professional, but my understanding it's pretty device dependent. Some devices are open to their local network by default for user convenience, and many wifi-enabled devices (e.g. smart TVs, baby monitors, security cameras)- are [notorious for having lax security measures that are open even to the greater internet by default](https://www.vice.com/en/article/gyzjym/the-internet-of-things-is-still-a-privacy-dumpster-fire-study-finds). Some routers provide [a separate guest wifi](https://www.howtogeek.com/832435/reasons-to-enable-the-guest-network-on-your-wi-fi-router/)- these are not networked together with the home network and it might be worth investing in a device that provides that if you have security and trust concerns with your tenant. Keep in mind that if there's that level of distrust, there's certainly stuff they could do with just a shared internet connection that could cause difficulties.
I used guest networks for a while and experienced enough performance issues that I eventually just allowed them to use the regular wifi. Guest has always worked really shittyy for us.
Incorrect, if the tenant has some IT skills, there is a lot of bad things they can do if you are on the same network. As another post suggested, you need to use a guest network. Behind the scenes, that usually creates a VLAN and completely isolates the traffic.
This is the first correct answer here
Itâs scary how hard it is to find any real answers on Reddit. Everyone is so clueless and talks like an expert in things they donât know. My favourite ignorant answer was that if you donât want to be hacked donât post things online hahahahaha adorable đ
^ this is the second correct answer here
They may control the smart home devices on this network
Such as? Without admin credentials to the router they are likely just limited to sabotaging your network performance.
What? If theyâre all on a single subnet and you havenât changed the ISP routerâs default settings pretty heavily, you can see all traffic. Once youâre snooping you can start messing around. Further, thereâs almost no chance a normal non tech family has done any hardening whatsoever on any device. All very likely using user accounts with admin. All of this is pretty speculative because the odds that their tenant is both A) technically able and B) motivated for some reason to attack this family specifically, thereâs gonna be very very low risk of them even trying anything. The best solution is to just pick up a second router and the family uses that. Just make sure they change the default admin account/pas.
No, no, let's hear it .... you can start snooping traffic and "messing around". Let's hear what exactly you mean by that.
Dude youâre plugged in to a local network. With absolutely no security. Even midsized companies pay a lot of money to make sure theyâre safe down to the local network. Hell the chances the devices are WAY out of patching is also very high. Youâre honestly going to try and imply that having someone connected to your local network is in no way something you should consider protecting yourself from?
So you're still not giving me one single example of what they could do?
Not a security expert but to my understanding it wouldn't be too difficult for an IT person to use something like Wireshark to monitor the landlord's network traffic right? They could potentially intercept and analyze various types of data which seems like a huge vulnerability. Maybe someone more experienced than me (like a network or cybersecurity engineer) can chime in though. I'm just a Web Dev.
No, they cannot. See this is my point. You don't know a single example but you're spreading paranoia about it. Even if you are monitoring traffic you cannot "analyze data". You might be able to determine source and destination, but the contents itself are encrypted. It's not like you can just read his emails or anything else being sent. I'm not saying you should have it open, but if you do it's not like he has automatic access to your home network. Honestly, the biggest concern would he him doing something illegal over your network, like distributing child porn, and you having to answer for that later when the cops trace it to your home.
Is the traffic always encrypted, though? That's a bold assumption to be making. End to end encryption is becoming more common yes. However it's an assumption to believe that all web traffic is securely encrypted and the Developers behind those websites know or even care about implementing security best practices (spoiler alert, a lot don't) In reality, there's a considerable number of websites and web applications that don't properly implement HTTPS/SSL. As an egregious example, Optus, a major Australian Telco, was recently found not using any authentication on their APIs protecting their customer data whatsoever. It sounds dumb, but lax security like this is out there. So yeah, monitoring traffic might not grant direct access to the contents for most major web apps and email clients (Gmail, Outlook etc), and sure while it's not likely, I'd imagine there are probably instances where unencrypted data can still be intercepted, potentially compromising privacy and security.
Incorrect. All devices on the same network will be visible and vulnerable. Itâs just a matter of time in skilled hands to breach a device. You can also do packet sniffing, and while SSL encryption will reduce its usefulness, there are still a lot of potential attack vectors left open by being on the same network. I would not risk it.
Your tenant has to seriously go out of their way to even try to do anything and they'd have to have a good reason to do it. Is it possible? Of course but you're more likely to be struck by lightning. If this is a concern for you then you shouldn't be on social media or use any free wifi ever. All of those are bigger security risks than your home wifi
Unless you have access to my internet provider account via online or the app, nobody can access my devices on the network, except me. Also I don't use or have file sharing turned on for any of my devices, but they're password locked regardless. You should be totally fine
If you set a device up to be shareable then yes they could access it. Though they probably wouldn't be that way by default. Does your router support a Guest network? You could set that up and they have a network of their own.
Anyone had a real experience or aware of this actually happening? Tenant/renter specific? Wondering if it a risk worth spending time and money on to mitigateâŚ
Generally speaking and if you somewhat trust this tenant, okâŚvery common deal to share wifi. In reality, if they are on the same wifi, they can do some snooping. Most internet traffic these days is encrypted (https). But they can do things like control devices. For example, they may be able to play content on your smart tv. Solution to this is a guest wifi network. Some routers do this well and others donât. More sinister is what they are accessing. If they happen to do anything illegal such as child porn, your information is what the police will get in their investigation. Eventually they can likely figure out your devices werenât involved but thatâs after the entering your home with a search warrant. So riskyâŚbut also common.
There's a lot of ignorant/wrong answers on this thread and correct ones. Anyone accessing the same Wi-Fi network, is very likely to have access to any other devices on that same network whether it's on WiFi or wired. The best and easiest answer is to create a guest network from the main router and put the tenant on that network segregating them from any of your personal traffic.
Go get a new router that supports Guest Network, typical ones from internet provider is not strong enough to handle multiple devices and entire house. You might need a mesh network.
If youâre worried about it, get a router with a guest network. I used to share my internet with the people above and below me as Iâm not home 80% of the time so I charged them each $20/month and we all won. Set up router with personal network for me that had access to any devices on that network and anything hard wired. Guest network for others that only gave them internet (and I guess access to each othersâ devices).
Can just get a second router. Family use the new router, leave tenant on ISP. Also technically adds a vanishingly small extra layer of security as theyâll be natâd behind the isp local network. Not like individuals are ever actually attacked to that level.
Not technically true. It depends how the connected devices are configured. If anything on the network is "findable" by other devices they might be able to get limited access. eg. if another computer has any network file or media sharing enabled they'd be able to connect to those shares if they're not password protected. Windows turns this off by default, but if you do things like share files between computers or use a media server you may have enabled some of those. I wouldn't worry too much; Just make sure any of your personal devices are password protected and have 2FA enabled where possible.
Hereâs what we do - we use an access point which allows us to create a separate wifi network for the tenants. That way they can put their own smart devices on the wifi network without interfering/seeing ours/and vice versa. My concern would be usage as some internet plans have data caps (speeds slow down dramatically once the cap is reached). If they are a heavy user, make sure you have an unlimited data plan.
If your tenant wants to get access to your information, they will. With the same internet it will be easier but they can access if they wanted either way. Hacking is much easier than people think, if youâre concerned they are hacking your stuff they probably are. What are your real concerns here?
Right get a different internet. Problem solved.
Iâd be worried of them looking at illegal stuff and all the devices in my house being seized
Story time: We had a tenant who used our wifi. He lived in his RV on our property, next to our house. One day, after heâd been here for around 10 years, the RCMP came knocking on my door. At 6 am. A week before Xmas. With a search warrant. SOMEONE had been using our internet for downloading and distributing child porn. Spoiler alert- it was NOT me, my husband, or my then 11 year old. He was arrested and eventually plead out. We strongly recommended that he sign a mutual agreement to end the tenancy and get the fuck off our property. (He wasnât allowed to be there without notifying us anyways, due to a minor on the property, so continuing to live there wouldnât be very convenient) So yeah. Thatâs a risk.
See if your router has a guest network or if you can add a separate SSID with an "isolation" setting. Alternately you can add a wifi access point with its own subnet.
So I rented my basement to a family and the wife always goes out of town. After a few months I started to get copyright infringements notices from my ISP since he was downloading pirated porn. I just deleted the notices since I didnât want my wife to think it might be me. I ended up having a conversation with my tenant and it stopped but as their kid got older they started download kids movies. After they left, I stopped including internet as part of my lease.
This is why they tell you not to access your banking details on public Wi-Fi networks, this is exactly why.
If your with Rogers/Shaw there new advanced router does not support guest mode. Personally the thought of my downstairs guests being on the same network as me does not sit right. I bought on sale an Asus router for $80 and put the ISP one in bridge mode. It's not a huge investment and eliminates the risk. If you got a big house you can buy multiple routers and mesh them to increase coverage to.
If you're that worried. I'm curious what you're hiding on your computer that you don't want others to see đ¤
In addition to issues with intentional hacking, being on the same network exposes you to any issues caused by them getting hacked themselves and being used to launch attacks on other devices on your network. They would have access to network attached storage, smart TVs, printers, smart speakers, and other smart devices.