My internet provider called saying i am using too many GB's but i barely use internet?

[Captain Hellboy]

There are three computers in the house used daily with wi-fi, all with good security systems. I am by far the biggest user of the internet but even i only download 20-30 songs per MONTH and a few dozen pictures, no gaming or mass-downloading.

Our bandwidth history shows that we use a puny .1 - .5 GB a day for the last year, then in the past month it rocketed up to 10 - 50 GB a DAY! Our internet provider had us change the internet password but that has not helped. Could it be possible that one of our three computers has a virus even though we have internet security that does daily virus scans? Could a neighbor be 'stealing' our internet?

[Roman Spears]

Well, it's possible your network is unsecured and someone is using it a signal (most likely wifi) for their own uses or people in your household are not being totally honest about their usage.

10 - 50GB a Day, that seems like heavy usage, like if you download movies non stop. You might want to investigate the matter further and go to a computer shop, I don't mean Best Buy, I mean a real computer store, talk to a person and see if it's possible to control and cap the usage of your household via a router that you might be able to control by master password.

Either way, it sounds like you need to take action.

[Jerry H.]

I've never heard of a virus consuming bandwidth. Either someone in your household is downloading like a madman or you have someone leeching off your internet. I would more likely assume it's a neighbor leeching off your wifi. In addition to wireless security passwords you should use MAC filtering, also known as access control, to only allow your network devices by identifying their specific MAC address.