Vulnerability · Published Jul 28, 2026 · Assigned by GitHub_M
CVE-2026-48025nebula-mesh: Decrypted CA private key persists in heap after signing
Medium 6.9
In plain English
A medium-severity security flaw in nebula-mesh from juev. There are no confirmed reports of exploitation so far. The chance it is exploited in the next 30 days is estimated at 0.5% (higher than 43% of all known vulnerabilities). Fixed versions are available - upgrade the affected package.
Official description
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.
Affected packages & fixed versions
| Ecosystem | Package | Fixed in | Advisory |
|---|---|---|---|
| Go | github.com/forgekeep/nebula-mesh | 0.3.7 | GHSA-8h84-fhqq-q58v |
| Go | github.com/forgekeep/nebula-mesh | 0.3.7 | GO-2026-5255 |
| Go | github.com/juev/nebula-mesh | 0.3.7 | GHSA-8h84-fhqq-q58v |
Affected products (as reported)
| Vendor | Product | Versions |
|---|---|---|
| juev | nebula-mesh | < 0.3.7 |
Weakness: CWE-244 · Vector: CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:N/UI:N/VC:L/VI:N/VA:N/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N