What is the purpose of Masquerade?

• A. Masking IP Addresses
• B. Encrypting traffic
• C. Blocking traffic
• D. Routing traffic

Answer: (A)

Masquerade is a NAT technique that lets devices on a local network share a single internet connection by masking their private addresses behind the router’s public address. When a device on the LAN sends traffic to the internet, the router rewrites the source IP to its own external IP on the outgoing interface and tracks the connection so replies are delivered back to the correct internal device. This approach automatically adapts if the router’s external IP comes from DHCP or changes, so no manual update is needed. It’s not about encrypting traffic, blocking traffic, or routing decisions—those are handled by encryption methods, firewall rules, or routing policies. Masquerade specifically handles translating internal addresses for outgoing traffic.