The kind of NAT that's widely deployed doesn't act as a firewall though. It buys you nothing from a security perspective. It's entirely possible to connect inwa

The kind of NAT that's widely deployed doesn't act as a firewall though. It buys you nothing from a security perspective. It's entirely possible to connect inwards over a NATing router unless there's also an additional firewall configured. Stateful NAT does imply state tracking, which is a major component needed to implement a stateful firewall, but it is not itself a stateful firewall.