What is a defining characteristic of a stateless firewall?

A defining characteristic of a stateless firewall is its focus on individual packets. Unlike stateful firewalls, which keep track of the state of active connections and make decisions based on the context of an entire communication session, stateless firewalls operate independently for each packet. They analyze the header of each packet and apply pre-configured rules to allow or block traffic, without considering the packet's relationship to previous packets or connections.

This approach means that stateless firewalls are generally simpler and faster since they do not need to maintain complex state tables or keep track of ongoing sessions. Their rules are straightforward and apply to various attributes of packets, such as source and destination IP addresses, port numbers, and protocols.