It's also worth stating that the client (including the cli client -- which, with a bit of work, you can get running in most situations where you'd use native wireguard) by default has a key rotation interval of I think 72 hours.
`mullvad tunnel get` will show it and `mullvad tunnel set rotation-interval <hours>` will change it. This is the preferred mitigation method of the post.
I personally don't mind having a pseudo-static IP (some other suppliers offer a static IPv4 as a feature!) as I wish to prevent network-level snooping from my ISP and governments. It's also worth stating that I think having a smaller IP space is an advantage for a privacy VPN: there are more potential users acting behind any given externally visible IP. Combined with technologies like DAITA (which effectively adds chaff to the tunnel) and multi-hop entrances and I personally think that this service really does plausibly make harder the life of those who snoop netflows all day.
How to report a bug or vulnerability
... we (currently) have no bug bounty program ... send an email to support@mullvadvpn.net
It should always be assumed that someone else (if not several someone elses) have already discovered the same flaw and are currently taking advantage of it while users remain totally unaware of their actual risk. By going public immediately, you give as many of those users as possible a chance to protect themselves.
Waiting to disclose something harmful when the users in danger could otherwise take steps to make themselves safe would be like not warning people entering a building not to go in because of a gas leak until after you've contacted the building owner and the fire department has shown up.
That's not what they said though. They said "please consider notifying the maintainer/vendor before publishing your findings, even if you intend to publish right away" (emphasis mine)
The flipside of course is ... does your disclosure increase the risk?
> aiting to disclose something harmful when the users in danger could otherwise take steps to make themselves safe would be like not warning people entering a building not to go in because of a gas leak until after you've contacted the building owner and the fire department has shown up
I don't think it's like this at all. The risk of a gas leak is not increased by telling people about it and can't be prevented after its occurred. To stretch your analogy, I'd say its more like you've found the gas leak and instead of turning off the gas supply are instead running around outside the building shouting about how there's a gas leak.
When you've got that much on the line you have to assume that the risk is already present for all users. It's true that there's always a chance that some users won't find your disclosure in time and additional would-be attackers who weren't aware of it already will start taking advantage of the flaw, but the alternative is that no users are safe.
> The risk of a gas leak is not increased by telling people about it and can't be prevented after its occurred.
It's true that warning people not to enter wouldn't make the gas more dangerous, but it limits the death count of the impending explosion. It keeps at least some people from entering the building and walking into a death trap.
There's no way to shut off the gas supply when you can't control what's already running on user's devices and more users are downloading and installing the buggy code all the time. It's really not a perfect analogy. The point is that immediate action will save some people, while waiting around means that nobody has a chance of being saved.
If so, I guess we just have different opinions on the ethics involved here.
why are companies so entitled to get free security research/audits?
As for our support team they are responsive and experienced. Several of them have worked with us for many years and do offensive security research in their free time.
Unlike many organisations we don't see customer support as a cost center, just like we don't see security as a cost center. Our support team represent our customers, and as a consequence contribute a lot to how we prioritise our roadmap.
I second this.
Clearly the person who wrote "Oof" has never emailed Mullvad support.
Whenever I have emailed Mullvad support I have received a prompt reply from a human being who clearly actually cares about taking ownership of the question and seeing it through to resolution.
I have also witnessed first-hand the support person taking the question to an internal team member where it requires additional input. So there are clear paths for escalation if circumstances require it.
Finally the support mail allows for PGP encryption of communications too.
(I am not a Mullvad shill. Not a Mullvad employee. Just a satisfied customer)
I'm not familiar with how you run your company -- without the context you gave most people would hesitate emailing support@ for security issues.
"Just email support@" feels like you don't care. That you do, and that your support team is awesome, doesn't change the fact that there are other companies out there who's aren't. Security people are human with human egos, and they want to feel special, so giving them a special way to reach you, even if it's the same thing behind the scene, makes a world of difference.
Sorta odd you don't support one of Europe's most popular distros.
>The Mullvad VPN app is available in our repository for the following supported Linux distributions:
Ubuntu (24.04+) Debian (12+) Fedora (42+)
The only thing I see on the issue you linked is a way to jerry-rig the fedora package. When I tried that I kept getting untrusted key warnings. You can skip them of course, but it kind of undermines any type of trust here