"One of the fun questions I used to ask my firewalls tutorial
attendees (back in the day) is: What is a stateful inspection firewall? I.e.: what does it DO?
The answers are usually illuminating. Nobody seems to actually know." (more here)
I think if you are buying a security product, you should always know WHAT IT ACTUALLY DOES!
And if you hear, "Oh, it does, you know, 'risk management'!" - you know what to do (hint: it includes a rotten egg, throwing and running away - in whatever order you prefer ...) :-)
UPDATE (12/22/2007): this is NOT about stateful inspection, this is about a) bad marketing and b) opaqueness of some security vendors about what they do. Come on!
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