Threat: Critical Malicious Wayland Input Injection Leading to Privilege Escalation or System Compromise
Description: A sophisticated attacker, through a compromised or specifically crafted malicious application running under Sway, sends highly crafted Wayland protocol messages to Sway's input handling components. This goes beyond simple DoS and targets vulnerabilities that allow for code execution within Sway's process or manipulation of system resources beyond Sway's intended scope. This could involve buffer overflows, use-after-free vulnerabilities, or logic flaws in how Sway processes complex input sequences. Impact: Elevation of Privilege (attacker gains control over the Sway process, potentially escalating to user or even system-level privileges), System Compromise (complete control over the user session or even the underlying system), Critical Denial of Service (unrecoverable Sway crash leading to data loss or system instability). Affected Sway Component: Wayland Input Handling (core input processing logic, Wayland protocol parsing, event dispatching). Risk Severity: Critical Mitigation Strategies: * Mandatory and Rapid Updates: Immediately apply security updates for Sway and Wayland libraries as soon as they are released. * Strict Input Validation (Sway Developers): Sway developers must implement extremely rigorous input validation, sanitization, and fuzzing of Wayland input handling code to prevent exploitation of parsing or processing vulnerabilities. * Memory Safety Measures (Sway Developers): Employ memory-safe programming practices and tools within Sway's development to mitigate memory corruption vulnerabilities. * Sandboxing/Isolation (Future Enhancement): Explore and implement stronger sandboxing or isolation mechanisms for Sway itself to limit the impact of potential vulnerabilities.
Threat: High Sway Configuration File Tampering Leading to Arbitrary Command Execution and User Session Takeover
Description: An attacker gains write access to the Sway configuration file (config), potentially through exploiting a separate vulnerability or misconfiguration outside of Sway itself (e.g., local privilege escalation). By modifying this file, the attacker injects malicious commands that are executed when Sway starts or during user session events (like workspace switching, application launching, etc.). This allows for arbitrary code execution within the user's session context.
Impact: Elevation of Privilege (immediate arbitrary command execution with user privileges, leading to full control over the user session), User Session Takeover (attacker can install backdoors, steal data, monitor user activity, and perform any action the user can).
Affected Sway Component: Sway Configuration Loading and Parsing (specifically, the code responsible for reading, parsing, and executing commands from the config file).
Risk Severity: High
Mitigation Strategies:
* Secure File Permissions: Ensure the Sway configuration file (config) is owned by the user and only writable by the user. Verify permissions are correctly set after installation and system updates.
* Configuration File Integrity Monitoring: Implement system-level file integrity monitoring for the Sway configuration file to detect unauthorized modifications.
* Minimize Command Execution from Config (Sway Developers): Sway developers should minimize or restrict the ability to execute arbitrary shell commands directly from the configuration file. Consider safer, more declarative configuration methods.
* Configuration Parsing Security (Sway Developers): Ensure robust parsing of the configuration file to prevent injection vulnerabilities within configuration commands themselves.
Description: An attacker, either through a local malicious application or potentially remotely if the IPC socket is exposed (highly unlikely in default configurations but possible through misconfiguration or port forwarding), exploits vulnerabilities in Sway's IPC mechanism. This could involve injecting malicious commands into the IPC interface, bypassing authentication (if any), or exploiting command parsing flaws to execute unintended actions within Sway's context. This allows for direct manipulation of Sway's window management, input handling, and potentially other system aspects controlled via IPC. Impact: Elevation of Privilege (gaining control over Sway's functionalities, potentially manipulating system settings or user environment), System Manipulation (attacker can control windows, workspaces, input focus, and potentially trigger system commands via Sway's IPC capabilities), Denial of Service (sending malicious IPC commands to crash or destabilize Sway). Affected Sway Component: Sway IPC (Inter-Process Communication) subsystem, IPC command parsing, IPC access control mechanisms. Risk Severity: High Mitigation Strategies: * Secure IPC Socket Permissions: Strictly control access to the Sway IPC socket using file system permissions. Ensure only trusted processes running under the user's account can access it. * Robust IPC Command Validation (Sway Developers): Sway developers must implement thorough validation and sanitization of all IPC commands to prevent command injection vulnerabilities. * Authentication/Authorization for IPC (Future Enhancement): Consider implementing authentication and authorization mechanisms for the Sway IPC to further restrict access and control, especially if remote IPC access is ever considered (though generally discouraged for security reasons). * Principle of Least Privilege for Applications: Run applications with the minimum necessary privileges to limit the potential impact if a malicious application attempts to exploit Sway IPC.
Threat: High Dependency Vulnerabilities in Critical Sway Libraries Leading to Code Execution within Sway
Description: Sway relies on critical external libraries for core functionalities (e.g., Wayland libraries, graphics rendering libraries, input handling libraries). Vulnerabilities (like buffer overflows, use-after-free, etc.) in these critical dependencies, if exploited, can directly lead to code execution within the Sway process itself. This is a direct impact on Sway's security posture due to its dependency chain. Impact: Elevation of Privilege (code execution within Sway's process, potentially leading to user or system-level compromise), System Instability (crashes, unpredictable behavior due to memory corruption), Information Disclosure (depending on the nature of the vulnerability and exploit). Affected Sway Component: Various Sway components that directly utilize vulnerable libraries (Compositor, Input Handling, Rendering, etc.), indirectly affecting core Sway functionality. Risk Severity: High Mitigation Strategies: * Proactive Dependency Management: Maintain a comprehensive inventory of Sway's dependencies and actively monitor for security advisories and vulnerability disclosures. * Automated Dependency Scanning: Implement automated vulnerability scanning of Sway's dependencies in the development and release pipeline. * Rapid Dependency Updates: Prioritize and rapidly apply security updates for all critical Sway dependencies. * Dependency Pinning and Reproducible Builds: Use dependency pinning and reproducible build processes to ensure consistent and auditable dependency versions are used. * Consider Alternative Libraries (Long-Term): In the long term, evaluate and consider migrating to more security-focused or memory-safe alternative libraries where feasible, if critical vulnerabilities are repeatedly found in current dependencies.