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manifex@sh.itjust.works

NAT vs firewall at home (programming.dev)

submitted 4 months ago by emotional_soup_88@programming.dev to c/networking@sh.itjust.works

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Why would I need to have software firewalls on my devices behind my NAT router at home? The topology is a basic consumer grade one: ISP -> my router (NAT) -> LAN, and vice versa.

If NAT already obfuscates my private addresses through translation, how would a potential adversary connect to anything beyond it?

What "good" would my public IP do for a hacker if I have no ports forwarded?

Is a firewall a second line of defense just in case I execute malware that starts forwarding ports?

I do have software firewalls on all my devices, but that wasn't an informed choice. I just followed the Arch Wiki's post installation guidelines.

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[–] frongt@lemmy.zip 14 points 4 months ago (5 children)

If you download and run malware, or someone introduces it to your network, a host firewall protects each device. Threats don't come exclusively via connections inbound from the Internet.

[–] Max_P@lemmy.max-p.me 1 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Not all routers have all that great security either. Even if the admin page isn't exposed to the Internet, you can access it and so does your browser. Just takes a little bit of XSS and oops.

[–] possiblylinux127@lemmy.zip 1 points 4 months ago

Some consumer devices expose services to the internet for some unknown reason.

In IPv6 land some vendors decided that a Firewall is not really necessary

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