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🛡️ CVE-2023-51702 — airflow

🟡 CVSS 6.5 — Medium ✅ No Known Exploit CWE-312 OSV
6.5
CVSS Score
0 Low4 Medium7 High9 Critical10

Description

Apache Airflow CNCF Kubernetes provider, Apache Airflow: Kubernetes configuration file saved without encryption in the Metadata and logged as plain text in the Triggerer service

Since version 5.2.0, when using deferrable mode with the path of a Kubernetes configuration file for authentication, the Airflow worker serializes this configuration file as a dictionary and sends it to the triggerer by storing it in metadata without any encryption. Additionally, if used with an Airflow version between 2.3.0 and 2.6.0, the configuration dictionary will be logged as plain text in the triggerer service without masking. This allows anyone with access to the metadata or triggerer log to obtain the configuration file and use it to access the Kubernetes cluster.

This behavior was changed in version 7.0.0, which stopped serializing the file contents and started providing the file path instead to read the contents into the trigger. Users are recommended to upgrade to version 7.0.0, which fixes this issue.

How this vulnerability can be exploited

This issue can be reached over the network, attack complexity is low, an attacker needs low-level privileges on the target. No user interaction is required. The scope is unchanged, so the impact stays within the vulnerable component. Rated impact: confidentiality high, integrity none, availability none.

CVSS metrics in full

The score comes from this vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N

  • Attack vector: Network — reachable from anywhere that can route to the service.
  • Attack complexity: Low — the attack works reliably, with no preparation.
  • Privileges required: Low — an ordinary user account is enough.
  • User interaction: None — nobody has to be tricked into anything.
  • Scope: Unchanged — the damage stays inside the vulnerable component.
  • Confidentiality impact: High — total loss, or loss the attacker controls.
  • Integrity impact: None.
  • Availability impact: None.

Weakness class

CVE-2023-51702 is classified as CWE-312: Cleartext Storage of Sensitive Information. Sensitive values are written to storage unencrypted and readable by anyone with access to it.

Affected software

CVE-2023-51702 is recorded against 3 packages.

  • airflow
  • apache-airflow (from 2.3.0 up to 2.6.1)
  • apache-airflow-providers-cncf-kubernetes (from 5.2.0 up to 7.0.0)

Timeline and source

Published on 6 March 2024 and last revised on 13 July 2026. No public exploit is currently recorded for this entry. A vendor advisory or fix has been published. Record sourced from OSV.

References

www.openwall.com (Web)
github.com (Web)
github.com (Web)
github.com (Web)
lists.apache.org (Web)
nvd.nist.gov (Web)

Other advisories for this package

airflow has other advisories on record. If you are patching this one, these are worth checking on the same host:

Same weakness in other software

These advisories are the same class of weakness (CWE-312: Cleartext Storage of Sensitive Information) in other software:

Details

Severity MEDIUM
CVSS Score 6.5
CVSS Vector CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N
CWE CWE-312
Public Exploit ✅ No
Source OSV
Published 2024-03-06
Updated 2026-08-20
Modified 2026-07-13

Affected Packages

Software From version Fixed in
airflow — —
apache-airflow 2.3.0 2.6.1
apache-airflow-providers-cncf-kubernetes 5.2.0 7.0.0

Similar Threats

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ⓘ Data Notice: The information presented above has been compiled from publicly available internet sources. Boteraser aggregates this data solely for informational purposes and does not independently classify, evaluate, or endorse any findings about the vulnerabilities listed. The accuracy and completeness of this information is the sole responsibility of the original publishers. Boteraser and its operators accept no liability for any decisions made based on this data.

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