G: If you're asking, "I had a weird home network issue—what is statistically most likely to be the entry point today?", the answer has shifted over the last decade.

The old answer was "someone cracked the Wi-Fi."

The current answer is usually "a vulnerable router or IoT device was exposed and compromised."

In rough order of likelihood:

1. Router vulnerability or outdated firmware

   • Still the king of home-network compromises.
   • Particularly common with older or end-of-life routers.
   • Remote-management features, unpatched firmware, and known exploits are frequent causes. citeturn0search4turn0search6turn0news12

2. IoT device on the network

   • Cameras, doorbells, smart plugs, TVs, DVRs, printers, NAS boxes.
   • Many ship with poor security and receive few updates.
   • Once compromised, they become a foothold inside the network. citeturn0search0turn0search5turn0academia18

3. Default or weak administrative credentials

   • Router admin passwords.
   • Camera passwords.
   • NAS passwords.
   • This sounds old-fashioned, but it remains one of the biggest real-world causes of compromise. citeturn0search0turn0search11turn0search22

4. Remote administration accidentally enabled

   • Router management exposed to the Internet.
   • SSH/Telnet/Web administration accessible externally.
   • Historically responsible for a large percentage of router infections. citeturn0search19turn0search23

5. Compromised extender, mesh node, or secondary networking device

   • Wi-Fi extenders and access points often get forgotten during updates.
   • Some still ship with old WPS-related vulnerabilities. citeturn0news10

6. Weak Wi-Fi security

   • WPA/WPA2 misconfiguration.
   • WPS enabled.
   • Ancient encryption methods.
   • Possible, but less common than people imagine if you're using WPA2/WPA3 and a decent password. citeturn0news16turn0news10

7. Malware on a trusted computer

   • Technically not a network intrusion first.
   • A compromised PC, phone, or laptop often becomes the thing probing the rest of the network.
   • In many investigations, this turns out to be the real starting point.

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A useful rule of thumb in 2026:

If I know nothing else about the situation, I'd assign probabilities something like:

• Router issue: ~40–50%
• IoT/smart-home device: ~25–35%
• Weak/default credentials: ~10–20%
• Actual Wi-Fi cracking from outside: single digits
• Sophisticated targeted attack: much less than 1%

The next question is: what was the symptom?

• Devices disappeared from the network?
• DNS started acting weird?
• Router rebooted?
• New unknown device appeared?
• Internet slowed down?
• Logs showed login attempts?
• Wi-Fi password stopped working?

The symptom usually narrows the list dramatically. For example, "suddenly getting redirected to strange websites" screams router/DNS compromise, while "network traffic spikes at 3 AM" often points toward an infected IoT device or router botnet membership.