I used to think my home network was fine, but a weird Tuesday in March changed my mind

Dakota Palmer · 2026-03-24T16:25:16.945431+00:00

So last Tuesday, my smart lights started flickering on and off at 2 AM, and my internet just died for a few minutes. I figured it was the ISP, but then I checked my router logs and saw a bunch of failed login attempts from an IP in a city I've never heard of. It was like 30 tries in an hour. I always thought 'who would bother with my home stuff?' but seeing that log entry 'admin login failed' over and over was a real wake-up call. I spent the next day changing all my default passwords, setting up a guest network for my smart devices, and finally enabling two-factor on my router admin page. It was a hassle, but now I sleep better. Has anyone else had a weird device act up and found something sketchy in their logs?

dixon.amy6mo ago

That kind of thing is getting way more common now that everything in the house is online. My neighbor had his smart thermostat crank the heat to 90 in the middle of summer, and it turned out some old security camera with a default password was the way in. It's wild how much of this stuff we just plug in and forget about.

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miam116mo ago

Ever check what devices those logins were trying to reach?

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casey_fox686mo ago

My buddy had his smart fridge start ordering weird stuff online lol. Turned out his old baby monitor was wide open and someone got into his whole network. @miam11 that's a good point about checking what they're trying to reach, his logs showed the same thing.

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