Sudden appearance of a suspicious Network name on our mobile devices

[Appin]

Suddenly our 2 x Sky sims and Motorola devices are both showing a strange network name under the wifi list of networks. The thing that is strange is that the middle section of the name is my computer's 'name' which I gave it, but the prefix and suffix of the stranger starts with "DIRECT- FJ (MY PC NAME)XMLX" and says the security is strong.

My query is: Why has this only appeared now and what is it?

We recently switched our Broadband from BT to Sky, 13th March, its now 30 April and this network stranger was not there till now.

We live in a very private rural location and our network list is showing 3 x Sky names.

The Hub name we recognise.

The other that we have always seen is SKY+5 alphanumeric digits.

The stranger is DIRECT-FJ(...)XMLX

The XML bit is the worry because that is usually an application......

Being new to Sky broadband/wifi, its of course possible that my lack of experience with this new set up has me confuzzed, so any advice is welcome, thanks!

[Chrisee · Accepted solution]

@Appin sounds like your PC WiFi card is broadcasting  a direct wifi ssid which many can do see https://www.wi-fi.org/discover-wi-fi/wi-fi-direct

Check the network settings on the pc to turn it off.

[Appin]

You genius you! Thank you so much!! I am glad its not actually 'suspicious' although how it got to be suddenly created is a mystery.

I found it under the advanced settings for network on my pc and disabled it and now my mobile device does not show it. Thank you!

Could you tell me what possibly caused this to automaticaly occur?

👽🤔

[GD1]

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@Appin wrote:

You genius you! Thank you so much!! I am glad its not actually 'suspicious' although how it got to be suddenly created is a mystery.

I found it under the advanced settings for network on my pc and disabled it and now my mobile device does not show it. Thank you!

Could you tell me what possibly caused this to automaticaly occur?

👽🤔

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Have you downloaded a recent Windows update?

[Appin]

Hi - last update was 9th April and there is one thats been there for ages but I haven't installed yet - (the next version of W11)

But its the next thing I thought of besides first suspecting something fishy... MS updates usually fig things up, almost every time!

Its highly possible that during my long nights of being awake and at my computer working that I saw something and thought lets see what that does..... maybe, but I dont remember. 😄

At least I understand it now, hooray!

Tks 😊