In this chapter, we will learn about:
Mechanisms in Lighttpd that contain attack risks:
Giving up privileges
Changing roots
Techniques to implement security
Securing Lighttpd against attacks is a good cause, but there may be attacks of the types we are not even aware of. Under POSIX-like systems, Lighttpd has to run as root, so that it can bind to port 80. This makes it a target worth attacking. Moreover, Lighttpd presents an open interface to the network, so it is easy to try and subvert it.
Attackers will try the most unlikely things to get a system out of the defined states, say, through huge requests with null characters and other niceties. I would not bet my life on the non-existence of a certain request that makes Lighttpd open its doors to an attacker. Therefore, it makes sense to contain the risk to Lighttpd.
Think of a car—it has break assistance, ESP and other "active security" to reduce the likelihood of an accident. But it also has seat belts and airbags...