Disabling Firewall Opens up Remote Access

Hi

I am running Asuswrt-Merlin 378.56_2 on a RT-N66U.

Today I was having trouble getting port forwarding working, so I disabled the firewall temporarily to see if that made any difference.

Then by luck, I realised my router interface had opened up to the world :\

I double checked my settings, verified remote access was disabled, uPnP was disabled, etc etc.

Finally, upon re-enabling the firewall, my router was hidden from the Internet again.

Is this right?! - Surely the remote access...

Disabling Firewall Opens up Remote Access