A little off the wall perhaps, but …
I have a cable modem and a router for a wireless home network. Is it a good or a bad idea to turn it off at night and during the day when we're all at work or school? Or should I leave it on 24/7.
I was thinking that leaving it on constantly makes me more vulnerable to hackers, not to mention wasting electricity. (Though I'd guess the amount of electricity used by a cable modem and a router is probably pretty trivial. Still, every little bit helps.)
When I have turned it off and turned it on again, it takes several minutes for it to go through its little dialog with the cable company and get me connected to the Internet again, which is annoying but not a big deal.
Anyone know any good reasons one way or the other?
Best Answer
There are other reasons to keep the modem on, but these would only apply if you keep your computer on too (I assume you power it off at night too, given you're concerned with the power usage of your modem!)
If you have not port-forwarded any ports to your computer, or set it as the "DMZ" (which is a bad idea), there is no security benefit from powering the modem off - aside from the fact you can't use the internet when this is so...
Current "intrusion vectors" for crapware (viruses, spyware, adware) are almost entirely based on you doing silly things, like opening executables, or clicking web-links. The number of viruses spread by the means you are concerned about (remotely exploiting vulnerable services) have dropped hugely now NAT-routers are commonplace.
Software updates tend to happen at times when the computer is idle, overnight is a good time for these to download (although these should happen regardless, unless they are really badly programmed!)
All that said, there's no technical reasons against powering your modem off at night - the only drawbacks are convenience, really.