Web File And Folder Permission – Security

I believe majority of us will have their website host on a shared environment as it is cheaper and more cost effective. Even if you have a dedicated server plan, the network administrator will not be 'automatic' enough to educate you about file and folder permission on your web environment. Your best bet is to approach them and discuss this topic hoping for a more secure environment through some dedication from your side (since all file and folder permission are managed by you instead of network administrator). But often we get standard answers from these network administrator who might not be very knowledgeable on this topic and you might ended up getting 'standard' answer from a predefined QnA text on their side. I believe everyone have certain knowledge on file and folder permission but in details what are the security risk we are facing if we ignore them? In this article, we will discuss them and hopefully get some idea and understanding on the security impact of file and folder permission in our web environment.

File and folder permission

Although many already know this, it is still a good practice to explain to those that are still new to file and folder permission. Personally, i think the best way to illustrate a file and folder permission is through a diagram. So i wrote out a sort of diagram like representative below,

  7       7     7
user   group  anyone
r+w+x  r+x    r+x
4+2+1  4+0+1  4+0+1  = 755

The permission mode is computed by adding up the following values for the user, the file group, and anyone.

  • Read 4 - Allowed to read files
  • Write 2 - Allowed to write/modify files
  • execute 1 - Read/write/delete/modify/directory

This will pretty much explain everything the diagram shows. So if we have chmod 777

  7       7     7
user   group  anyone
r+w+x  r+x+x  r+x+x
4+2+1  4+2+1  4+2+1  = 777

It is quite easy to understand what does the number means but how about each type of users?

  • User: it refers to the permission given to the owner of the file/folder.
  • Groups: it refers to the permission given to the group that was allocated to the file/folder
  • Anyone: basically refers to the permission given to outsider like normal visitors of a site

This should sum up the permission access you should give to a particular file or folder in a web environment.

What File and folder permission protect?

It is necessary to understand that file and folder permission protects only your file and folder (obvious). This means that other than files and folders, other stuff is unprotected such as databases.

Permission 777

Most likely majority of your file and folder will be set to permission 777 unless it is told otherwise. It is indeed dangerous to have everything set to permission 777 and might become a security risk. However, it is largely depends on whether your web server is being configure correctly. The main problem is that many server are not being configured correctly which is why users have to protect themselves through file and folder permission. (although permission also can act as another layer of protection for your file and folder). Is it safe for some directory to have permission 777? Yes, if you have a proper configure server. But you should be cautious and only give each folder or file with sufficient permission.

Why we need to set different permission

We will have to be cautious on the different level of permission permit for each type of user if we do not trust our network administrator on the configuration done to the server. The reason is that a hacker might hack into your system through a vulnerable web service on the server. However, the type of user the hacker get hold might not be the owner and having different permission level might just save yourself.

Type of damage

There are many types of damage a hacker might caused to your web environment. Assuming the same scenario happen which the hacker managed to get hold certain access which allows him to execute code as the user of the service. If a user neglect permission level (777 for all file and folder) and its server configuration is done poorly, an attacker can caused the sever damage to your system. Below listed some damage that could happen.

  • add/delete/modify any file or folder
  • implant virus or Trojan that will infect your visitors
  • Steal important information
  • Legal action might be make against you for poor security
  • implant bot
  • Etc.

Confusion on inherit of permission

Files do not inherit the permissions of the containing directory. This means that even though the uploads directory is executable, the files uploaded into it are not. (You should be explicitly setting the permissions for uploaded files in your upload script.) If the files are supposed to be read-only, don't hesitate to set them as 444.

Remove Execute permission

PHP files only have to have the execute bit set if you are running PHP in CGI mode. If you have PHP as an Apache module (mod_php), then it doesn't matter whether the files are executable or not.

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