What are the dangers of setting directory to 777?

I'm looking for articles or explanation as to the dangers of setting a directory to 777.  Are there times when it is necessary to set to 777?  Such as when PHP has to write to directory for example?

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php can write a directory if the apache user (or any other user that php runs as) has rights to write.

So the correct command would be :

Code:

chmod apache:apache /path/to/dir

On the other hand you may not have access to run this command, so a chmod 755 will be probably ok.

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the normal value for a directory is 755, but since a lot servers with control panels are bad configured you need to set those directories to 777

don't worry about they are not accessible from outside if the server has additional security

giving the right permissions is a hard task...

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