Should Your Router's Universal Plug And Play (UPnP) Be On Or Off?

If you've been replacing your router every three to five years (as recommended), and you're not running something from ten years ago, you've likely got blistering-fast internet connections and a whole slew of modern features that make your life just a bit easier. For instance, Universal Plug and Play (UPnP) is a nifty one. This networking protocol lets all the devices on a local network instantly recognize each other, and more importantly, automatically configures them to access the internet. How cool is that?

Unfortunately, UPnP is not without its faults, and we'll use the following analogy to illustrate why. UPnP is a security guard in a club (your router) that may not be good at background checks, but is amazing at finding seating (ports) for all the patrons (devices) that arrive in a split second. Put differently, you don't need to do much configuring yourself, and all the smart devices or gaming consoles in your home will just work. The problem is that UPnP has WAN access, which means that devices can access your network and open ports, you being none the wiser. So, is it better to have UPnP on or off? Since it's a security risk waiting to happen, disabling it is one of the easiest ways to make your router more secure.

What happens when you turn it off, though? While you can shut off stuff like VPN passthrough, once you pull the plug on UPnP, some of your devices may have problems connecting to the internet. The keyword here is may, as modern consoles and devices can work properly with UPnP off. If a device decides to misbehave, you can manually enable a port for it, and it'll work just fine.

Showing UPnP the door is easy. The process may vary according to your router model, but for the most part, the first step is discovering your router's IP address. Check the sticker on the back of the router, or if you're running Windows, bring up Command Prompt and enter the 'ipconfig' command and copy the address assigned as the Default Gateway. Then, paste it (or enter it manually) into the address bar in your internet browser, sign in, and navigate to the Administration section. There, you'll find the UPnP setting that you can swiftly disable. On TP-Link, the option is hidden under NAT forwarding, but the rest is the same.

In most cases, your devices will work just fine. If they don't? You can use port forwarding. Find the exact port number that the device uses, log back into the admin page, and navigate to port forwarding. Then, enter the specific port number and the IP address of the device you're forwarding traffic to. That will fix most, if not all, issues.

Doing this can be a hassle if you've got a bunch of devices that rely on that remote connection, such as security cameras. Yet, UPnP makes it easier for any threat actors to access your home network. When you think about it, it's a small sacrifice to make for some extra security. Plus, you'll probably feel like a true computer wizard when you manually forward ports, and that's priceless.