Which type of firewall monitors traffic streams from beginning to end?

Question

Options

• Acircuit-level gateway
• Bstateless
• Cstateful
• Dpacket filter

• A
  5% (3)
• B
  2% (1)
• C
  92% (55)
• D
  2% (1)

Explanation

Stateful firewalls track the full context of network connections - they remember where a session started, what packets have been exchanged, and whether new packets legitimately belong to an established flow, giving them end-to-end visibility into traffic streams. A packet filter (D) inspects each packet in isolation with no memory of previous packets, making it "stateless" by nature. Stateless firewalls (B) is essentially another name for packet filtering - they apply rules to individual packets without tracking connection state. A circuit-level gateway (A) operates at the session layer and validates TCP handshakes, but once a connection is established it stops inspecting traffic, so it doesn't monitor the full stream.

Memory tip: Think "stateful = state-aware" - it remembers the state of every connection from start to finish, like a security guard who checks your ID at the door and watches you the whole time you're inside.

No community discussion yet for this question.