Should reverse connections be used to bypass NATs?

Question

I'm planning on doing a demonstration on how remote administrative tools work for my schools computer security club. I plan on writing a RAT in C++ and demonstrating/explaining how it works. I ran into the issue of dealing with computers behind a NAT, but came up with my own solution. I decided to make the victim act as a client and the attacker act as a server. That way, only the attacker needs to make changes in their NAT to establish a connection. Is this an appropriate way of bypassing the victim's NAT? I have heard of reverse connections being used to bypass victim NATs, but my solution seems to be much simpler. Are there any benefits in sing a reverse connection opposed to my method?

Answer 1

Having the client connect is the standard way of dealing with NATted connections. It can also known as a 'Reverse Shell'.

BTW, I know you probably want to write your own RAT, but Metasploit might be a very effective demonstration ....