full-disclosure - How secure is PHP ?

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Message-ID: <20041104195422.37589.qmail@web53507.mail.yahoo.com>
From: modperlpants at yahoo.com (J b)
Subject: How secure is PHP ?

> However, when browsing the web, I found an article
> which said that "it requires an expert to lockdown
> php" (Sorry, but I can't quite recall the URL).
> 
> While I am not a novice, I am defintely not an
> expert either - expecially on security issues.
> 
> So, I'd like to ask the members of this list - how
> difficult is it to secure php ? Do you really need
> a security "expert" to do this ?
> 
> P.S. The few hundred students mentioned above are
> IT students ;-) 

I think one thing worth mentioning is that in
*most* PHP installations, the PHP code will be
executed as the web server user.

This means that the several hundred IT students
will be able to read each other's code and write
to each other's datastores. Most students will
have to chmod a+w any files or directories
that will be modified by their PHP code.

There are several ways around this, but it does
take more configuration and security smarts to
implement. This "vulnerability" (if you can call
it that) exists in just about every multi-user web
system out there, so it's probably worth your time
to investigate different security mechanisms.

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