What permissions do you use for customavatars directory?

I've read on vB forums that for custom avatars to work, the customavatars directory should be '777'.

But I'm afraid of setting any directory to 777 as it poses a security problem. Our site was hacked few months ago and the hacker had installed all the malicious scripts in our customavatars folder.

Now I want to know how to allow custom avatars without worrying about security?

You can use 777 folders for static files (aka, not php/etc scripts) safely as long as you lock them down from being able to RUN anything.

All you need is a simple htaccess file in all your writable folders as outlined in this thread:
Security issue

Now I want to know how to allow custom avatars without worrying about security

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