What is the “Stateful” Firewall and what does it do?
The “stateful” firewall provides protection during a VPN session and protects the computer running the VPN client from Internet attacks while the VPN Client is connected to a VPN Concentrator. When enabled, this feature allows no inbound sessions from all networks, regardless of whether a VPN connection is in effect. This means that if you have checked the “Stateful” Firewall (Always On) option, you have a firewall running on your machine AT ALL TIMES, regardless of whether or not you’re even running the VPN Client at that time. The policy is “set,” which means that you can’t customize it at all. In addition, the firewall is controlled on the client-side, so it protects both traffic regulated through the concentrator (UNC traffic), as well as traffic being sent out beyond the UNC network.
