[Term of the Day]: NAT

Term of the Day

“Network Address Translation”

Definition — What is NAT and what it does?

To access the Internet, one public IP address is required, but we can use a private IP address in our private network.

The idea of NAT is to allow multiple devices of a private network to access the Internet through a single public address.

This enables private IP networks that use unregistered IP addresses to connect to the Internet. NAT operates on a router or firewall, usually connecting two networks together, and translates the private (not globally unique) addresses in the internal network into legal addresses before packets are forwarded to another network.

Benefits of NAT:

It provides additional security by hiding the entire internal network behind that public address. It reduces the number of public IP addresses for an organization, also offers a dual function of security and is typically implemented in remote-access environments.