Application-level gateways
An application-level gateway goes further than the other firewall types mentioned previously. They can actually perform deep-packet inspection and analyze the data within the payload besides identifying what application is in use. This means you can block or allow traffic specifically based on the application rather than a port. This is especially useful when attackers are trying to send data on a port that is used for something else. Let's look at an example of this.
A firewall has been set up to allow inbound traffic from port 53 (DNS). An attacker is aware of this and forges a packet with a malicious payload, and sends it from port 53 on their machine to a destination on the other side of the firewall. The data ...
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