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.
History

Mon, 07 Sep 2026 08:45:00 +0000

Type Values Removed Values Added
First Time appeared Forgekeep
Forgekeep nebula-mesh
Vendors & Products Forgekeep
Forgekeep nebula-mesh

Fri, 04 Sep 2026 19:45:00 +0000

Type Values Removed Values Added
Description 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.
Title nebula-mesh: CA private key not zeroized on web mobile-bundle error paths
Weaknesses CWE-212
CWE-316
References
Metrics cvssV4_0

{'score': 7.1, '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'}


cve-icon MITRE

Status: PUBLISHED

Assigner: GitHub_M

Published: 2026-09-04T19:40:51.423Z

Updated: 2026-09-08T17:33:06.977Z

Reserved: 2026-06-09T19:39:52.404Z

Link: CVE-2026-53604

cve-icon Vulnrichment

No data.

cve-icon NVD

Status : Deferred

Published: 2026-09-04T20:17:23.437

Modified: 2026-09-08T21:05:26.920

Link: CVE-2026-53604

cve-icon Redhat

No data.