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Sorry I am just getting into Web Development and trying to learn more about servers and PHP, so I downloaded the LAMP stack on an Ubuntu14 OS and started an apache2 server. 

tcp6       0      0 :::80                   :::*                    LISTEN      -

This is the line in my netstat -anltp | grep LISTEN I am curious about.

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    Are you trying to run a web server on your machine (it sounds like you are). Port 80 is the default port for HTTP so if you are running a web server it is supposed to be open. Also, can you add the output of netstat to your question in an edit?
    – lzam
    Sep 1, 2014 at 2:32
  • There's hardly enough information here to answer the question properly, but the short answer to "am I vulnerable if port 80 is open" would be "yes". Now, vulnerable to what extent requires a lot more detail. What's the exposure of the system in relation to the Internet? Exactly what sort of web server is running on port 80? What version of software are you running for your web server, and any applications supporting it? What OS are you running, and what version? The list goes on.
    – Iszi
    Sep 1, 2014 at 2:42

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Port 80 is the standard port for web servers. It is supposed to be listening for people to connect to it with their web browsers. That is how it works. All web servers are targets for people to hack, so technically yes, you are open to attacks-- But that is the nature of a public web server. You install things like firewalls and intrusion detection applications to cover yourself when you set one up. If you add SSL, it will be listening on port 443 by default as well.

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The simplest answer to your question would be YES, but you need to take into account what software is listening on that port. Since you've installed LAMP stack (Linux,Apache,MySQL,PHP) then most likely it's Apache 2.4 listening on that port with PHP enabled as well. You would need to check your Apache (2.4) and PHP (5.5) versions for known vulnerabilities. I would also check if MySQL is exposed as it comes pre-installed as part of LAMP stack.

If you apply updates promptly and follow general best security practices your exposure is similar to many public websites using Apache/MySQL/PHP which I think is quite acceptable.

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