Various embodiments disclosed herein provide techniques for managing encryption keys at nodes in a mesh network. In various embodiments, a method includes, while in a key failure detection time period associated with a first key, detecting, by a node in a mesh network, a decryption failure using the first key; in response to detecting the decryption failure using the first key, incrementing, by the node, a failure count for the first key; and in response to determining that the failure count is at least a threshold count and a key update time period has been entered, transmitting, by the node to a key management service, a request for an update to the first key.