Vulnerability in airflow (CVE-2026-49298)
Summary
Vulnerability in airflow (CVE-2026-49298). Successful exploitation can lead to full system takeover. Exploitable via KubernetesExecutor. Mitigation: upgrade to 3.2.2 or later.
Original description
The description as published by the source.
A bug in Apache Airflow's KubernetesExecutor caused JWT tokens used by worker pods to authenticate against the Execution API to be passed to the worker container as command-line arguments visible in the pod spec. An authenticated UI/API user with Kubernetes read-only access to the cluster (e.g. pods/get in the Airflow namespace) could harvest the JWT from kubectl describe pod output and then call state-mutating Execution API endpoints — triggering Dag runs, clearing runs, reading or writing Variables / Connections / XComs — as if they were a running task. Affects deployments using the KubernetesExecutor. Users are advised to upgrade to apache-airflow 3.2.2 or later. This is the airflow-core half of the same vulnerability addressed by CVE-2026-27173, which shipped the apache-airflow-providers-cncf-kubernetes side of the fix. Deployments that already upgraded apache-airflow-providers-cncf-kubernetes to 10.17.0 or later per the CVE-2026-27173 advisory should additionally upgrade apache-airflow to 3.2.2 or later to close the core-side surface — the two fixes are complementary, not duplicates.
Source: GitHub Security Advisories (Global) NVD GitHub Advisory
Auto-generated summary
Assembled by SecPulse from the source data (CVSS, CWE, affected versions) using templates — no AI involved. Check the original description and references below for exact details.
A vulnerability tracked as CVE-2026-49298 has been found in airflow.
Attackers can target a specific entry point like KubernetesExecutor over the network to misuse the product.
Successful exploitation can lead to full system takeover. CVSS score: 8.8/10.
What to do: upgrade airflow to 3.2.2 or later.
If unsure, ask your IT team or search "airflow CVE-2026-49298" on the vendor's site.
CVE-2026-49298 (airflow) — CWE-538 / CVSS v3 8.8
Attack vector: remote (network-reachable) / no user interaction
Attack surface: KubernetesExecutor
Patched: 3.2.2 — apply immediately
Plan: 1) Audit SBOM/dependencies, 2) Stage→prod upgrade, 3) Add WAF/proxy monitoring on affected endpoints, 4) Hunt IOCs in logs.
Refs: see the GHSA / vendor advisory / patched release linked on this page.
A vulnerability (CWE-538) exists in airflow. Attackers reach the vulnerable code path via KubernetesExecutor.
Check the vendor advisory for the affected versions of airflow. Attack surface: KubernetesExecutor.
Severity: High (CVSS 8.8/10). Successful exploitation can lead to full system takeover.
Update to 3.2.2.
Until the patch is applied: disable the affected feature, apply WAF rules, or restrict access via network ACLs.
Search webserver/proxy logs for unusual request patterns matching this CVE's known IOCs. Run grep -r 'airflow' . against your dependency files (package-lock.json, requirements.txt, go.sum) to find affected services.
Response actions
Concrete steps and command examples for SOC/SRE teams to execute in order
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1Identify exposure identify
grep -r 'airflow' . | grep -v node_modulesリポジトリと本番環境の依存ファイル (package-lock.json / requirements.txt / go.sum / Gemfile.lock 等) で
airflowを grep し、稼働しているサービス・バージョンを把握する。 -
2Apply patch patch
Upgrade airflow to 3.2.2ステージング環境で 3.2.2 に上げて回帰テスト → 本番反映。回帰テストはアプリの主要ハッピーパスを含めること。
-
3Post-deployment verification verify
Confirm patched version is live in productionパッチ適用後、ステージングで PoC または同等の悪用パターンを再現して脆弱性が閉じたことを確認。本番ではアクセスログ・WAF でアラート再発が無いか継続監視。
Affected packages
References
- advisory nvd.nist.gov
- advisory lists.apache.org
- advisory github.com
- patch github.com
- web github.com
- web github.com
- web pypi.python.org