Which type of firewall operates based solely on source and destination information?

The stateless packet filtering firewall is designed to make decisions based only on static attributes of the packets it examines, specifically focusing on source and destination IP addresses and the port numbers of the packets. It does not keep track of the state of active connections, meaning that it treats each packet independently without any context of previous packets.

This type of firewall operates by inspecting headers of the packets and applying predefined rules to allow or block traffic. For example, if a packet matches an established rule that permits traffic from a certain source IP to a certain destination IP on a specified port, the packet is allowed through. Conversely, if it doesn't match, it is denied access.

A key characteristic of stateless packet filtering is its simplicity and speed, as it does not require the overhead of maintaining a state table for tracking active connections. However, this simplicity can also be a limitation since it generally offers less security than stateful or application-layer firewalls, which analyze more complex interactions and states between packets.

In summary, the correct answer centers around the core functionality of the stateless packet filtering firewall in assessing packets based purely on their source and destination information, without any deeper connection awareness or inspection of the data payload.