Define a non-standard IP address in the Internet-Box

    • Good morning,

    I have the following question.

    I’m looking to configure my network to assign IP addresses to my router and devices that are different from those that are usually configured by default, which is typically 192.168.1.1 for the router.

    However, after several attempts to modify Swisscom’s Internet-Box 2, I am unable to modify these addresses. With each new attempt, the box software tells me that the address is reserved. However, I choose my addresses well within the intervals that are in principle allowed, namely, from 192.168.0.0 to 192.168.255.255, from 172.16.0.0 to 172.31.255.255 and from 10.0.0.0 to 10.255.255.255.

    Could anyone help me? Are there any additional limitations introduced by Swisscom? If yes, which ones? Or am I doing it wrong?

    I would like to assign different IP addresses, standard addresses, because I heard that this would make it difficult for a possible hacker. Is this really fair?

    Thank you in advance for your help.

    Show original language (French)

    Hi,

    You’re talking about private addresses. Changing them has no influence on any hacker because they are private addresses and cannot be accessed from the outside (Internet).

    I strongly advise you not to modify these standard settings. In the long term this could cause you problems.

    Show original language (French)

    Hello and thank you for your response.

    I would like some additional explanations.

    I don’t know much about it, but from what I understood, if a hacker managed to find a breach to enter the network, then, find themselves faced with IP addresses different than the usual ones, would complicate his task, in the sense that he would have to search for or guess the addresses in question. For example, if a hacker wants to attack the router and it has the standard address, he already knows straight away that the router is at the address 192.168.1.1, which makes his life easier. This reasoning seemed logical to me. But it’s false, then? For what?

    Furthermore, I heard that it was not recommended and I would probably end up following the advice, but I would like to understand why we cannot change these IP addresses. In principle, the beaches that I mentioned in my first message are free, right?

    Show original language (French)

    Hello,

    If you are the victim of a hacker, you have unknowingly installed a virus/malware/Trojan horse on your machine.

    It won’t change anything whether your private address is 192.168 or 172. or even 10.0.2. It’s your machine that will connect to the Internet and send the information to the hacker.

    The malware can also send information about your network configuration such as the machines present in your network. In addition, the private address of your router is indeed 192.168.1.1 but the public address (the one which allows your router to communicate with the Internet) has nothing to do with it and you cannot control.

    The only protection is that the router refuses (standard configuration) all external connections to this public address.

    You can obviously change your private addresses but you should keep in mind that sometimes network devices are pre-configured to work in the 192.168.1.xxx range.

    In short, you will complicate your task (and that of technical support if you call them once) for a protection measure that does absolutely nothing. I hope that’s clearer 😉 Have a nice weekend.

    Show original language (French)

    Thanks again for the response and sorry if I’m boring.

    In the hypothesis of a Trojan horse or other malware, your explanation seems logical to me.

    But there are also forms of hacking that directly attack the network via WiFi, right? It is with regard to this type of attack that I understood that changing the internal IP addresses of the network could help.

    Show original language (French)

    Merci pour ta patience, Peter Walter😏

    This post is in English