nebula-mesh: Decrypted CA private key persists in heap after signing
- Published
- Last modified
- Where the record stands: published, rejected by its publisher, or superseded by another id.What do these mean? →
- published
- Whether CISA lists it in its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog: proof that attackers are using it.What do these mean? →
- Not listed in CISA KEV
- Fix
- Fixed in 0.3.7
- Whether working attack code is public (Exploit-DB, Metasploit, Nuclei or GitHub). Public code makes attacks easier.What do these mean? →
- None on Exploit-DB, Metasploit or GitHub
- Exploitation: none
- Automatable: yes
- Technical impact: partial
Summary
nebula-mesh is a self-hosted control plane for Slack Nebula mesh virtual private network. Prior to version 0.3.7, internal/pki/resolver.go:36-64 constructs a CAManager with the plaintext ed25519.PrivateKey after unwrapping via the master key; internal/pki/ca.go:13-16 stores it. Callers at internal/api/enroll.go:116, internal/api/updates.go:297, and internal/api/mobile_bundle.go:40 use the manager for one Sign() and drop the reference on function return — but the underlying slice contents are not wiped before release. The keystore package's contract (internal/keystore/keystore.go doc: "Callers MUST zeroise the returned plaintext DEK as soon as it is no longer needed") is not met by the CAManager consumer. Decrypted CA private keys persist in process heap until Go's GC scavenges the underlying slice — minutes to hours under load, indefinitely on idle servers. This issue has been patched in version 0.3.7.
Timeline
- CVE published
- CISA SSVC assessment
Exploitation: none · Automatable: yes · Technical impact: partial
- Record last updated
Affected versions
- juev nebula-mesh
fixed in 0.3.7
- github.com/forgekeep/nebula-meshGo
fixed in 0.3.7
- github.com/juev/nebula-meshGo
fixed in 0.3.7