5 Causes to Use a Stateless Firewall (+3 Key Downsides)

In networking, “state” refers back to the context or session information of a present community connection. A stateful firewall, due to this fact, retains monitor of the state of every connection passing by way of it, whereas a stateless firewall doesn’t.

Though they could sound much less restrictive, stateless firewalls are extremely helpful for securing home and enterprise networks. They use ACLs (Access Management Lists) to find out which site visitors to permit by way of and which site visitors to dam.

In fact, not monitoring the state of community connections signifies that stateless firewalls can’t inform you as a lot about the site visitors in your community as stateful firewalls. The advantages of stateless firewalls include tradeoffs.

Companies usually steadiness these trade-offs by utilizing each varieties in tandem, with stateless firewalls dealing with bulk site visitors filtering on the perimeter and stateful firewalls providing deeper inspection behind them.

By the top of this put up, you’ll know when stateless firewalls work very well, and when one other answer may work a lot better.

5 causes to make use of a stateless firewall

1. They’re environment friendly

The most important benefit of utilizing a stateless firewall is effectivity. Since they solely verify for particular person packets (fairly than monitoring the state of connections like their cumbersome stateful counterparts), stateless firewalls are like lean, imply, security machines.

This makes them much more helpful when dealing with excessive volumes of site visitors. For example, since they don’t should sustain with the particular particulars of each connection passing by way of, stateless firewalls gained’t chew up as a lot reminiscence and processing energy.

In case you’re working a large-scale website that receives tons of site visitors, for instance, you gained’t need your firewall to sluggish issues down. With a stateless firewall, you possibly can arrange sturdy community safety protections with out jeopardizing a web site’s efficiency.

SEE: Keep away from these mistakes when configuring network security. 

2. Stateless firewalls are easy to arrange and keep

Organising a stateless firewall is a breeze in comparison with stateful firewalls.

Stateful firewalls dynamically keep state tables to trace ongoing connections, guaranteeing site visitors flows are reputable by monitoring session data.

In distinction, stateless firewalls depend on a set set of filtering guidelines, reminiscent of permitting or blocking packets based mostly on IP addresses, ports, or protocols. This makes stateless firewalls easier to configure and fewer resource-intensive, although it additionally makes them much less adaptable to dynamic or context-dependent site visitors than stateful firewalls.

3. Stateless excels on the community perimeter

Stateless firewalls are sometimes used as a primary line of protection in community safety attributable to their simplicity and effectiveness at blocking undesirable site visitors.

They’re significantly helpful in eventualities the place solely fundamental entry management is required, reminiscent of filtering site visitors between trusted and untrusted networks. This protects particular providers from frequent assaults like port scans, denial-of-service (DoS) assaults, or VoIP fraud.

Whereas they could not supply the deep inspection or session consciousness of stateful firewalls, they will function an efficient preliminary barrier, lowering the load on extra superior methods by blocking easy, high-volume threats earlier than they attain extra delicate parts of the community.

4. They’re inherently much less weak

Stateless firewalls don’t maintain monitor of previous site visitors or energetic connections, which makes them much less susceptible to sure forms of assaults that focus on the firewall’s reminiscence or saved information.

As a substitute, stateless firewalls merely evaluate incoming packets to their pre-defined “permit” and “deny” guidelines, guaranteeing that site visitors is just allowed into the community if it meets particular standards. This simple method ensures that solely approved site visitors enters the community.

Since they don’t must handle the small print of every connection, stateless firewalls keep away from a number of the vulnerabilities that may come up when a firewall tries to recollect every little thing, like changing into overloaded throughout different types of DDoS attacks, the place attackers flood the system with too many requests.

Stateful firewalls supply deeper inspection and extra thorough safety, however that introduces further complexity, which may be exploited by attackers. Stateless firewalls, with their easier design, keep away from this threat altogether.

5. Stateless firewalls are cost-effective and inexpensive

As a result of they don’t require the superior options of stateful firewalls, reminiscent of session monitoring or deep packet inspection, their {hardware} and upkeep prices are considerably decrease. This makes them an accessible alternative for organizations with restricted IT budgets or smaller networks.

Stateful firewalls are costlier attributable to their superior options, reminiscent of built-in intrusion detection and prevention systems. These firewalls additionally require extra processing energy, reminiscence, and specialised {hardware} to handle real-time site visitors evaluation and keep safety.

Key downsides of a stateless firewall

Whereas stateless firewalls have their benefits, in addition they include some downsides.

1. Minimal packet inspection capabilities

Because it doesn’t maintain monitor of connections, a stateless firewall gained’t keep a desk of all of the earlier connections which have gone by way of the firewall. This makes it sooner and simpler to deal with excessive volumes of site visitors, however it comes with minimal packet inspection capabilities.

For instance, stateless firewalls can solely examine particular person packets based mostly on headers and protocols, that means they can’t take a look at the contents of the packets themselves. This makes them much less efficient at detecting and stopping extra refined assaults that may bypass easy packet inspection, reminiscent of ones that use encrypted site visitors.

Furthermore, as a result of lack of connection monitoring, a stateless firewall can not all the time distinguish between reputable and malicious site visitors. This can lead to pointless blockages of reputable site visitors, which might disrupt enterprise operations. It additionally makes it harder to switch the firewall, as stateless firewalls can not acknowledge connection states — to allow them to’t permit and deny site visitors dynamically based mostly on them. Study extra about how stateful inspection works.

2. More durable to scale

One of many greatest downsides to stateless firewalls is that they are often an absolute nightmare to scale in sure eventualities.

The issue lies in the truth that a stateless firewall solely examines particular person packets to find out whether or not to permit or deny them. Which means that, because the variety of connections to your community will increase, so does the variety of guidelines in your firewall. Due to this fact, when your community has a excessive quantity of site visitors, it may be extraordinarily troublesome to handle and keep.

Sadly, with stateless firewalls, it is advisable to create guide guidelines for every form of packet that travels by way of the community. This may result in a scenario the place there are just too many guidelines to handle — which might result in community efficiency points, safety flaws, and big administrative overheads. Study extra about how to create a firewall policy that works on your community.

3. Preliminary configuration to work correctly

Though stateless firewalls are a breeze to arrange in comparison with stateful firewalls, the method isn’t precisely the best.

Stateless firewalls can require a good bit of preliminary configuration to work correctly. For example, since they don’t keep connection states, they need to depend on different elements—reminiscent of IP addresses and port numbers—to find out whether or not or not incoming packets are allowed into the community.

Which means that, along with the aforementioned filtering guidelines, some further settings require cautious configuration to make sure that reputable site visitors is allowed by way of whereas malicious site visitors is blocked. Study extra about how to set up a firewall properly.