Preventing Web Attacks with Apache

Introduction

Why This Book?

There were a number of motivating factors that moved me to write this book. First and foremost was the fact that the number of web server and web application attacks are rising quickly. A report from security firm Zone-H (27/26 April 2005) finds that web server attacks and web site defacements increased by 36 percent in the last year, from 251,000 in 2003 to 392,545 in 2004. According to the report, 2,500 web servers are successfully attacked every day.

“Defacement is just one option for an attacker,” said Roberto Preatoni, the founder of Zone-H. “In most circumstances the techniques used by defacers are the same used by serious criminals to cause damage. The data on cybercrime provides information on the evolution ...