CVE-2026-53604 PUBLISHED

nebula-mesh: CA private key not zeroized on web mobile-bundle error paths

Assigner: GitHub_M
Reserved: 09.06.2026 Published: 04.09.2026 Updated: 04.09.2026

nebula-mesh is a self-hosted control plane for Slack Nebula mesh VPN. Prior to version 0.3.8, the web handler renderMobileBundle passes the real pki.CAResolver directly into mobilebundle.Build. Inside Build, resolver.LoadByID decrypts the CA's ed25519 private key into a pki.CAManager, but Build never calls CAManager.Wipe() on any return path. As a result, when a mobile-bundle request goes through the web UI and Build returns — especially on error (missing network, invalid prefix, DB error, signing failure) — the plaintext CA private key remains on the Go heap, unwiped, until garbage collection. An attacker able to read process memory (core dump, swap, memory-scraping) can recover the CA signing key, which would allow minting arbitrary host certificates for the mesh. The API handler already does this correctly: it loads the CAManager, defer caMgr.Wipe(), and wraps it in caManagerResolver. Only the web path is affected. This issue has been patched in version 0.3.8.

Metrics

CVSS Vector: CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:L/UI:N/VC:H/VI:N/VA:N/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N
CVSS Score: 7.1

Product Status

Vendor forgekeep
Product nebula-mesh
Versions
  • Version < 0.3.8 is affected

References

Problem Types

  • CWE-212: Improper Removal of Sensitive Information Before Storage or Transfer CWE
  • CWE-316: Cleartext Storage of Sensitive Information in Memory CWE