The router in most pubs was installed once, worked, and has been left alone ever since. It still has its factory password, it has not had a firmware update in years, and - the part that matters - the card machine and the till are very likely on the same network as the free Wi-Fi you hand out to every customer who asks. That is three separate problems living in one grey box on the wall.

The default password is the first. Router login details are printed in manuals and listed online by model, so ‘admin/admin’ is not a secret, it is a doormat. The missing updates are the second: routers get security fixes like everything else, and one that has not been touched since 2019 has a long list of known holes that anyone can look up.

The one that does the real damage is the flat network. If your payment terminal, your till and your back-office laptop share the same Wi-Fi as the public, then any compromised customer device is one step from your business systems. The answer is a separate guest network - most business routers offer one as a tick-box - that keeps customers online but walled off from anything that handles money.

None of this needs a consultant. Log into the router, change the admin password to something long and unique, check for and install a firmware update, and switch on a guest network for customers so the till sits on its own. If the box is genuinely too old to offer a guest network or take updates, that is your sign to replace it, and a new business router costs less than a decent barrel.