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GHSA-g5hv-r743-v8pm BIT-airflow-2024-39877 CVE-2024-39877 PYSEC-2024-190

Apache Airflow has DAG Author Code Execution possibility in airflow-scheduler

High PyPI
Severity
0.0 / 10
High · CVSS 4.0
Exploit chance (EPSS)
1.73%
Chance of exploitation in the next 30 days. Higher than 77.56% of scored vulnerabilities.
Known exploited
No
Not in CISA's catalog
Weakness
CWE-277 Insecure Inherited Permissions
CWE-94 Improper Control of Generation of Code ('Code Injection')
Fix
2.9.3
Upgrade apache-airflow to this version or later

Description

Apache Airflow 2.4.0, and versions before 2.9.3, has a vulnerability that allows authenticated DAG authors to craft a doc_md parameter in a way that could execute arbitrary code in the scheduler context, which should be forbidden according to the Airflow Security model. Users should upgrade to version 2.9.3 or later which has removed the vulnerability.

Affected versions

PyPI

PackageVulnerableFixed in
apache-airflow
>= 2.4.0, < 2.9.3
2.9.3

How to fix

Move to the fixed version or later with your package manager, update the lockfile, and run your tests. If the package only arrives through another dependency, upgrade that dependency first. If none of its releases pulls a fixed version yet, force the version with your package manager's override.

apache-airflow PyPI → 2.9.3

pip
pip install --upgrade "apache-airflow>=2.9.3"
poetry
poetry add "apache-airflow>=2.9.3"
uv
uv add "apache-airflow>=2.9.3"

Severity breakdown

CVSS 4.0 0.0

CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:L/UI:N/VC:H/VI:H/VA:H/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N

Attack vector
Network
Attack complexity
Low
Attack requirements
None
Privileges required
Low
User interaction
None
Confidentiality (vulnerable system)
High
Integrity (vulnerable system)
High
Availability (vulnerable system)
High
Confidentiality (subsequent systems)
None
Integrity (subsequent systems)
None
Availability (subsequent systems)
None

CVSS 3.1 8.8

CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

Attack vector
Network
Attack complexity
Low
Privileges required
Low
User interaction
None
Scope
Unchanged
Confidentiality
High
Integrity
High
Availability
High

Weakness

CWE-277: Insecure Inherited Permissions

A product defines a set of insecure permissions that are inherited by objects that are created by the program.

How to prevent it
  • Architecture and Design, Operation: Very carefully manage the setting, management, and handling of privileges. Explicitly manage trust zones in the software.
  • Architecture and Design: Compartmentalize the system to have "safe" areas where trust boundaries can be unambiguously drawn. Do not allow sensitive data to go outside of the trust boundary and always be careful when interfacing with a compartment outside of the safe area. Ensure that appropriate compartmentalization is built into the system design, and the compartmentalization allows for and reinforces privilege separation functionality. Architects and designers should rely on the principle of least privilege to decide the appropriate time to use privileges and the time to drop privileges.

CWE-94: Improper Control of Generation of Code ('Code Injection')

The product constructs all or part of a code segment using externally-influenced input from an upstream component, but it does not neutralize or incorrectly neutralizes special elements that could modify the syntax or behavior of the intended code segment.

How to prevent it
  • Architecture and Design: Refactor your program so that you do not have to dynamically generate code.
  • Architecture and Design: Run your code in a "jail" or similar sandbox environment that enforces strict boundaries between the process and the operating system. This may effectively restrict which code can be executed by your product. Examples include the Unix chroot jail and AppArmor. In general, managed code may provide some protection. This may not be a feasible solution, and it only limits the impact to the operating system; the rest of your application may still be subject to compromise. Be careful to avoid CWE-243 and other weaknesses related to jails.
  • Implementation: Assume all input is malicious. Use an "accept known good" input validation strategy, i.e., use a list of acceptable inputs that strictly conform to specifications. Reject any input that does not strictly conform to specifications, or transform it into something that does. When performing input validation, consider all potentially relevant properties, including length, type of input, the full range of acceptable values, missing or extra inputs, syntax, consistency across related fields, and conformance to business rules. As an example of business rule logic, "boat" may be syntactically valid because it only contains alphanumeric characters, but it is not valid if the input is only expected to contain colors such as "red" or "blue." Do not rely exclusively on looking for malicious or malformed inputs. This is likely to miss at least one undesirable input, especially if the code's environment changes. This can give attackers enough room to bypass the intended validation. However, denylists can be useful for detecting potential attacks or determining which inputs are so malformed that they should be rejected outright. To reduce the likelihood of code injection, use stringent allowlists that limit which constructs are allowed. If you are dynamically constructing code that invokes a function, then verifying that the input is alphanumeric might be insufficient. An attacker might still be able to reference a dangerous function that you did not intend to allow, such as system(), exec(), or exit().
  • Testing: Use dynamic tools and techniques that interact with the product using large test suites with many diverse inputs, such as fuzz testing (fuzzing), robustness testing, and fault injection. The product's operation may slow down, but it should not become unstable, crash, or generate incorrect results.
  • Operation: Run the code in an environment that performs automatic taint propagation and prevents any command execution that uses tainted variables, such as Perl's "-T" switch. This will force the program to perform validation steps that remove the taint, although you must be careful to correctly validate your inputs so that you do not accidentally mark dangerous inputs as untainted (see CWE-183 and CWE-184).
  • Operation: Run the code in an environment that performs automatic taint propagation and prevents any command execution that uses tainted variables, such as Perl's "-T" switch. This will force the program to perform validation steps that remove the taint, although you must be careful to correctly validate your inputs so that you do not accidentally mark dangerous inputs as untainted (see CWE-183 and CWE-184).
  • Implementation: For Python programs, it is frequently encouraged to use the ast.literal_eval() function instead of eval, since it is intentionally designed to avoid executing code. However, an adversary could still cause excessive memory or stack consumption via deeply nested structures [REF-1372], so the python documentation discourages use of ast.literal_eval() on untrusted data [REF-1373].

References

Timeline

  1. Published
  2. Last updated by the source
  3. Latest EPSS score
AdvisorySeverityWhy it's related
CVE-2020-13927
Authentication bypass in Apache Airflow
Critical Known exploited Also affects apache-airflow
CVE-2020-11978
Remote code execution (RCE) in Apache Airflow
High Known exploited Also affects apache-airflow
PYSEC-2026-3990
Apache Airflow: the Core API logout endpoint revokes only a session token presented as the _token cookie.
Critical Also affects apache-airflow
PYSEC-2026-3989
When a request to the Airflow core API carries both a session cookie and an explicit `Authorization: Bearer` token, Airflow resolves the caller from the cookie…
Medium Also affects apache-airflow
PYSEC-2026-3988
Apache Airflow's `/assets/events` API returned asset events for every Dag in the deployment, with no filter restricting them to the Dags the caller is…
Medium Also affects apache-airflow
GHSA-5247-m8w9-2v4m
Apache Airflow missing team context permits cross-team Dag actions and XCom reads
Medium Also affects apache-airflow
GHSA-f3c2-j7g8-vpp8
Apache Airflow Task SDK fails to mask list-shaped JSON Variables
Medium Also affects apache-airflow
GHSA-cjv4-7hp2-2x9h
Apache Airflow bulk endpoints log Variable and Connection secrets in cleartext
Medium Also affects apache-airflow
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