Which option is a characteristic of a stateful firewall?
A.
can analyze traffic at the application layer
B.
allows modification of security rule sets in real time to allow return traffic
C.
will allow outbound communication, but return traffic must be explicitly permitted
D.
supports user authentication
Explanation:
http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/security/security_management/cisco_security_manager/
security_manager/4.1/user/guide/fwinsp.html
Understanding Inspection Rules
Inspection rules configure Context-Based Access Control (CBAC) inspection commands. CBAC
inspects traffic that travels through the device to discover and manage state information for TCP and
UDP sessions. The device uses this state information to create temporary openings to allow return
traffic and additional data connections for permissible sessions.
CBAC creates temporary openings in access lists at firewall interfaces. These openings are created
when inspected traffic exits your internal network through the firewall. The openings allow returning
traffic (that would normally be blocked) and additional data channels to enter your internal network
back through the firewall. The traffic is allowed back through the firewall only if it is part of the same
session as the original traffic that triggered inspection when exiting through the firewall.Inspection rules are applied after your access rules, so any traffic that you deny in the access rule is
not inspected. The traffic must be allowed by the access rules at both the input and output
interfaces to be inspected. Whereas access rules allow you to control connections at layer 3
(network, IP) or 4 (transport, TCP or UDP protocol), you can use inspection rules to control traffic
using application-layer protocol session information.
For all protocols, when you inspect the protocol, the device provides the following functions:
•Automatically opens a return path for the traffic (reversing the source and destination addresses),
so that you do not need to create an access rule to allow the return traffic. Each connection is
considered a session, and the device maintains session state information and allows return traffic
only for valid sessions. Protocols that use TCP contain explicit session information, whereas for UDP
applications, the device models the equivalent of a session based on the source and destination
addresses and the closeness in time of a sequence of UDP packets.
These temporary access lists are created dynamically and are removed at the end of a session.
•Tracks sequence numbers in all TCP packets and drops those packets with sequence numbers that
are not within expected ranges.
•Uses timeout and threshold values to manage session state information, helping to determine
when to drop sessions that do not become fully established. When a session is dropped, or reset, the
device informs both the source and destination of the session to reset the connection, freeing up
resources and helping to mitigate potential Denial of Service (DoS) attacks.