Most modern firewalls are either stateful or stateless, but never both. True or False?

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Stateful and stateless handling aren’t mutually exclusive in modern firewalls. Stateful inspection keeps track of active connections and uses context from previous packets to decide whether new packets fit an established flow. Stateless filtering applies rules to individual packets without remembering past traffic. In practice, firewalls often mix both approaches: they use stateful inspection for most traffic while also offering stateless rules (like ACLs) for quick per-packet decisions or for specific features. Some products also provide dual-mode capabilities or modules that operate purely statelessly in certain contexts. Because of this blend, the statement is not true.