Find Out Who Is Surfing On Your Wireless Network
Many users nowadays connect to the Internet via Wlan. That's handy for a number of reasons like being able to access the Internet from multiple locations without having to buy a 50 meter network cable and tug that around with you all the time.
Wireless networks have disadvantages as well, especially so if they are not well protected. Anyone in reach of the signal can theoretically try and "get in". That's obviously simple if the Wlan is not protected at all. Protected Wlans on the other hand can be attacked as well.
Lets say you operate a Wlan in your house, apartment or local shop. You may want to know if anyone else is currently using your Wlan besides you and other authorized users. But how do you do that?
That's where Wireless Network Watcher comes into play. The free portable software for the Windows operating system displays all devices and computers that are currently connected to a computer network.
Each device is listed with its IP address and name if available. The listing also includes the MAC address of each device, the network adapter company and if available other device information.
The program works under all NT based Windows operating systems, starting with Windows 2000 all the way up to Windows 7. The computer you are running the software on needs to be connected to the same wireless network to scan for other connected devices. You can switch network adapters easily with the F9 key, which can be handy if the wrong adapter gets picked automatically, or if you have more than one installed on the computer.
The data can be exported into HTML, XML, CSV or plain text files, and also copied to the clipboard and pasted into a spreadsheet application.
Wireless Network Watcher is a handy application for Windows users who want to check up on their network from time to time to make sure that no one in the neighborhood is logging into your network.
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My neighbour keeps stealing my wifi and I used this program and I knew about it, so I used MAC filtering allowing only my devices to connect. Is there a way to hide your MAC from this program?
Thanks/
The best protection is a good password for the Wlan and to use the most secure encryption method available.
Ain’t the WLAN router itself has an inbuilt feature for connected devices monitor?
I usually hide my wireless signal ID, block access from unknown Mac address and ping from WLAN, using a long complicated password.
I guess that is enough to block average hacker out.
NirSoft, I love ’em.
Whenever I want to check the Wlan, I use the router’s “connection table” and WireShark.
Great article, Martin, as always!
Another nifty app that I use called My WiFi Zone alerts me whenever someone attempts to leech my Bandwidth or accesses my system.
Also Freeware and works very well. :)
Didn’t this get reviewed on Ghacks earlier?
https://www.ghacks.net/2011/07/12/wireless-network-watcher-find-out-who-is-connect-to-your-wi-fi-network/
It might have been, but a second opinion/review never hurts! :)