Modern routers provide strong security through the latest encryption algorithms but it’s also up to you to choose a strong password. Regardless of your password strength it’s always a good idea to find out who’s connected to your WiFi network. If you spot any unknown devices, it’s worth changing your WiFi password, just to stay on the safe side.
While there are many methods you can use to find out who’s connected to your WiFi network, in today’s guide we’ll be using a free tool called WiFi Guard developed by SoftPerfect.
How to find out who’s connected to your WiFi network
The first thing you need to do is to download WiFi Guard (simply visit the link below):
The setup is simple and the tool doesn’t bundle any kind of third-party tools so you should be done in less than a minute.
Once you run the tool, it will open its Settings panel where you can perform a few adjustments before initiating the scan. You can leave everything at default values but you have to manually select the network adapter since the field is blank by default and you cannot run a scan until you make your choice.
Once you’re happy with the settings hit the OK button to continue.
At this point you just need to click on the “Scan Now” button and let WiFi Guard do its thing. Within a few seconds you should see all the devices which are currently connected to your network on the main window.
I scanned my home network and realized the tool didn’t identify all connected devices on the first attempt so I used the “Scan Now” button a second time. It did the trick so you might need to do it as well.
If any unknown or new devices are detected you should be seeing a pop up like this one. Of course, if you are able to identify these devices, then there’s no problem. Otherwise, you might want to investigate further.
As you can see, WiFi Guard lists a bunch of details for each detected devices, specifically its IP address, MAC address, Name, RTT, Â Info and Vendor. Also, the entries that have a red dot are protected by a firewall while the ones marked with the green dot can be pinged.
If you right click on an entry and select Properties you can see all of the details about a certain devices, as well as mark it as “known” so you will never be notified when it is detected.
