Vulnerability details
CVE-2026-53604
nebula-mesh: CA private key not zeroized on web mobile-bundle error paths
Official 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.
CVSS scores
| Score | Version | Source | Vector |
|---|---|---|---|
| 7.1High | 4.0 | CVEProject cvelistV5 (CNA) (GitHub_M) | 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 |
Affected products
| Vendor | Product | Versions | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| forgekeep | nebula-mesh | < 0.3.8 | CVEProject cvelistV5 (CNA) |
References and advisories
3Details
- Published
- 2026-09-04
- Last updated
- 2026-09-08
- State
- Published
- Assigner (CNA)
- GitHub_M
Exploit prediction (EPSS)
SSVC assessment (CISA)
- Automatable
- No
- Exploitation
- None
- Technical impact
- Partial
Weaknesses (CWE)
- CWE-212Improper Removal of Sensitive Information Before Storage or Transfer
- CWE-316Cleartext Storage of Sensitive Information in Memory