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CVE-2020-11978

An issue was found in Apache Airflow versions 1.10.10 and below. A remote code/command injection vulnerability was discovered in one of the example...

Basic Information

CVE State
PUBLISHED
Reserved Date
April 21, 2020
Published Date
July 16, 2020
Last Updated
February 06, 2025
Vendor
Apache Software Foundation
Product
Apache Airflow
Description
An issue was found in Apache Airflow versions 1.10.10 and below. A remote code/command injection vulnerability was discovered in one of the example DAGs shipped with Airflow which would allow any authenticated user to run arbitrary commands as the user running airflow worker/scheduler (depending on the executor in use). If you already have examples disabled by setting load_examples=False in the config then you are not vulnerable.
Tags
apache cisa nuclei_scanner metasploit_scanner

CVSS Scores

CVSS v3.1

8.8 - HIGH

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

CVSS v2.0

6.5

Vector: AV:N/AC:L/Au:S/C:P/I:P/A:P

SSVC Information

Exploitation
active
Technical Impact
total

Exploit Status

Exploited in the Wild
Yes (2025-05-10 00:00:00 UTC) Source
Proof of Concept Available
Yes (added 2021-05-22 15:58:01 UTC) Source

References

https://lists.apache.org/thread.html/r7255cf0be3566f23a768e2a04b40fb09e52fcd1872695428ba9afe91%40%3Cusers.airflow.apache.org%3E http://packetstormsecurity.com/files/162908/Apache-Airflow-1.10.10-Remote-Code-Execution.html http://packetstormsecurity.com/files/174764/Apache-Airflow-1.10.10-Remote-Code-Execution.html

Known Exploited Vulnerability Information

Source Added Date
CISA 2022-01-18 00:00:00 UTC

Scanner Integrations

Scanner URL Date Detected
Metasploit https://github.com/rapid7/metasploit-framework/blob/master/modules/exploits/linux/http/apache_airflow_dag_rce.rb 2025-04-29 11:01:11 UTC
Nuclei https://github.com/projectdiscovery/nuclei-templates/blob/main/http/cves/2020/CVE-2020-11978.yaml 2025-04-26 00:00:00 UTC

Potential Proof of Concepts

Warning: These PoCs have not been tested and could contain malware. Use at your own risk.

pberba/CVE-2020-11978

Type: github • Created: 2021-05-22 15:58:01 UTC • Stars: 8

PoC of how to exploit a RCE vulnerability of the example DAGs in Apache Airflow <1.10.11

Timeline

  • CVE ID Reserved

  • CVE Published to Public

  • Proof of Concept Exploit Available

  • Added to KEVIntel

  • Detected by Nuclei

  • Detected by Metasploit