Images Folder Permissions

[LRS]

I recently upgraded to the latest version and am having some proiblems with the images folder re scuring it.

My main images directory is laid out like this: whatever.com/store/images

The admin folder is laid out thusly whatever.com/store/admin/ but with a different name per security instructions. The parameters for the different admin folder name have been set in the required files and everything is working fine other than the following:

When I changed the images folder permissions to read only for for all (also tried just for group and public), as instructed in one of the files that talks about securing the site, none of the images would show up in the store to the customers.

When I set permissions to read / write for public and read / write / execute for group, they still would not show up. I had to set permissions to 777 read / write / execute for admin group and public to get them to show.

I am assuming this is BAD to leave it like that. How do I get the images to show up to the customer yet protect this folder from hacking?