Is there a way to test hardware firewall?

Hi,

I bought a router which says it has NAT/SPI firewall.

However, I don't see any difference, and I'm not sure if it is even working.

Is there a simple way to check if my hardware firewall is working?

Thanks in advance.

 

I dont you are meant to 'see' any difference. If you want to feel better about it, I suggest you take a look at www.grc.com and do a port scan.

There are some old posts on what SPI actually means in the context of a home router. Have a search for it if you have lots of time on your hands to read through.

My take is that the biggest 'security' benefit from having a router is that you are assigned a non publically routable IP address using Network Address Translation. Check http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_address_translation for more info.