What does the NAT feature do in Sophos XG Firewall?

The NAT (Network Address Translation) feature in Sophos XG Firewall is fundamentally designed to facilitate the translation of private IP addresses to a public IP address. This process is essential for enabling devices on a local network to communicate with external networks, such as the internet. When a packet is sent from a private IP address to an external destination, NAT modifies the header of the outgoing packet so that it appears to originate from the firewall's public IP address. This way, responses from the external hosts are correctly routed back to the original requester on the local network.

Additionally, NAT serves multiple purposes, such as conserving public IP address space and enhancing security by keeping internal network structures hidden from external parties. By masking internal IP addresses, NAT helps protect against direct attacks on the local network.

The other options do not encompass the primary role of NAT. While encryption is important for secure data transmission, it does not relate to NAT's function of IP address translation. Monitoring bandwidth usage and traffic prioritization, while valuable network management tasks, are separate functionalities that NAT does not directly address.