WiFi country is set to a different country than where the device operates

What the audit found

A wireless interface in your configuration has its Country setting set to one country, but you told the audit that the device operates in another, and the two are not compatible regulatory domains. The radio is therefore following the channel plan and power limits of the wrong place.

The audit only performs this check when you supply the country of operation, and reports it at high severity. It is a legal and interference matter rather than a hacking risk, and it does not depend on whether the router is exposed to the internet.

Why it matters

Radio spectrum is regulated per country. The same 5 GHz band that is free to use indoors in one place is reserved for weather radar, satellite links or military systems in another; the maximum transmit power differs between regions by a factor of ten or more; and some channels are simply not allowed. RouterOS relies on the country setting to know which of these limits to apply. Set it to the wrong country and the radio will happily use frequencies and power levels that are prohibited where it stands.

The consequences are practical. Radars in the 5 GHz band — used for aviation and weather — are why DFS exists: an access point must listen for radar and vacate the channel. A router configured for a country without that requirement will not listen, and interference with a meteorological radar shows up as a visible streak on the radar image, which is how regulators track the source down. Fines are issued for this. Excess power in the 2.4 GHz band mostly harms your neighbours and yourself: it does not make your clients any louder, so the link is no better, and the noise floor rises for everyone.

The usual causes are mundane. A router was bought abroad or provisioned from a template written for another country, someone chose "United States" because it unlocks more channels and higher power, or a default was never touched. All of it is fixed with one setting, which also gives you the right channel list for where you are.

What it looks like in Winbox

Open Wireless → WiFi Interfaces, double-click the radio and look at the Wireless tab: the Country dropdown shows the current setting. Set the mode to Advanced if the field is hidden. On RouterOS 7 with the wifi package, open WiFi, select the interface and find Country on the Configuration tab.

The setting lives on each physical radio; virtual interfaces inherit it from their master.

How to fix it

Set the Country to the one where the device physically operates — on every physical radio, since virtual interfaces inherit it from their master. The dropdown under Wireless → WiFi Interfaces (or the Configuration tab under WiFi on RouterOS 7) shows the exact spelling RouterOS uses.

When the country changes, the radio re-reads its allowed channel list. Two things may follow, and both are expected. If the current channel is not legal in the new country, the radio moves to one that is; check the Frequency setting afterwards, where automatic selection is the safest choice. On 5 GHz, channels that require DFS will spend about a minute listening for radar before they start transmitting, and clients reconnect once the channel is up.

Also make sure the frequency mode is set to follow the regulatory domain rather than superchannel or manual transmit power, so the limits are actually enforced; the audit has a separate finding for that.

Changing the country briefly restarts the radio. If you manage the router over the same WiFi, use Safe Mode or connect by cable first, so that a radio that comes back on a channel your laptop cannot use does not strand you. Afterwards, confirm each radio shows the correct country, look at the channel and power limits now in force for that country in the interface's country information, and check that the operating frequency is in that list. Then re-run the audit with the same country of operation; the finding should be gone.

The full MKRouterKit report gives the exact commands for your configuration — with your interface names and subnets filled in, in the order that will not lock you out.

FAQ

Setting another country gives me more channels and more power. Why not keep it?

Because it is not legal, and because the extra power does not help. Your laptop and phone transmit at their own, much lower, power; making the access point louder only means clients hear it from places where it cannot hear them. Interference with radar or a neighbour's network is what you actually gain. Use the correct country and fix coverage with a second access point instead.

The router was set to "etsi" or "fcc" rather than a country. Is that a mismatch?

Not necessarily. Those are regional domains: "etsi" covers most of Europe and "fcc" the United States, and the audit treats them as compatible with the countries they apply to. The finding appears only when the configured country and your country of operation follow different rules.

I run a point-to-point link licensed for higher power. Does this apply?

If you hold a licence, set the exact frequency and power it permits and keep the correct country for everything else. The finding is about unlicensed operation under the wrong rules, which is almost every case.