What is the CVSS score of CVE-2026-50203?

CVE-2026-50203 has a contested CVSS base score of 9.1 from a third party (e.g. CISA-ADP), while the vendor rates it Critical. vuln.today uses the vendor rating as authoritative.

Which versions of Apache Airflow SFTP Provider are affected by CVE-2026-50203?

Apache Airflow SFTP provider (versions before 5.8.1) contains a critical path traversal vulnerability that allows malicious or compromised remote SFTP servers to write arbitrary files on Airflow…. A patch is available.

How to fix or mitigate CVE-2026-50203?

Within 24 hours: Inventory all Airflow deployments using the SFTP provider and identify which SFTP servers they connect to; classify servers as trusted (internal) or untrusted (external). Within 7 days: Implement network controls restricting SFTP server connectivity to pre-approved internal servers only; configure file system permissions on Airflow worker directories to least-privilege (read-only where possible); enable file system integrity monitoring on worker hosts. Within 30 days: Monitor Apache Airflow advisories for vendor release of apache-airflow-providers-sftp 5.8.1 or later and deploy immediately upon availability; evaluate whether SFTP provider can be disabled if not actively required, or migrate to alternative secure transfer methods for untrusted sources.

Apache Airflow SFTP Provider CVE-2026-50203

EUVD-2026-37520 CRITICAL

Path Traversal (CWE-22)

2026-06-16

GHSA-qf38-jq28-3ccq

Path Traversal Apache

Critical

Disputed · 9.1 CISA-ADP

Severity by source

Sources disagree (Medium–Critical)

Vendor (CNA) PRIMARY

MEDIUM

qualitative

CISA-ADP

9.1 CRITICAL

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

vuln.today AI

6.8 MEDIUM

Network vector because the attack originates from a remote SFTP server; AC:H because attacker must control or compromise that server; S:C because file writes escape the intended destination scope; C:N as no data exfiltration is described.

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

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

vuln.today treats the vendor’s rating as authoritative. A higher third-party CVSS (e.g. CISA-ADP) is shown for transparency but does not drive the headline severity.

CVSS VectorCISA-ADP

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

Attack Vector

Network

Attack Complexity

Low

Privileges Required

None

User Interaction

None

Scope

Unchanged

Confidentiality

High

Integrity

High

Availability

None

Lifecycle Timeline

Patch available

Jun 17, 2026 - 03:01 EUVD

Analysis Generated

Jun 16, 2026 - 14:16 vuln.today

Description PRE-NVD

Disclosed via oss-security. NVD scoring and full description are pending.

Articles & Coverage 1

News Critical Path Traversal in Apache Airflow SFTP Provider - CVE-2026-50203 Jun 16, 2026

AnalysisAI

Path traversal in Apache Airflow SFTP provider (apache-airflow-providers-sftp before 5.8.1) allows a malicious or compromised remote SFTP server to write files outside the configured local destination directory on the Airflow worker host. The root cause is that SFTPHook.retrieve_directory does not sanitize server-supplied directory-entry names before constructing local file paths, enabling traversal sequences to escape the intended destination. No exploit code has been publicly identified at time of analysis, but the attack requires no Airflow credentials - any deployment that downloads directories from an untrusted SFTP server is in scope.

Technical ContextAI

The vulnerability resides in the SFTPHook.retrieve_directory method (also exposed via SFTPOperator with operation=get) within the apache-airflow-providers-sftp package. When Airflow retrieves a remote directory, it iterates over filenames returned by the SFTP server and constructs local destination paths by joining the configured base directory with the server-supplied entry names. Without stripping path traversal sequences such as '../' or absolute path prefixes from server-controlled filenames, an attacker-controlled server can dictate write locations anywhere on the host filesystem. The root cause class is path traversal (CWE-22), with the trust boundary violation being that the code treats server-supplied filenames as safe relative identifiers when they can contain directory separators. No CPE string was provided in the source data, but the affected package is the PyPI package apache-airflow-providers-sftp, versions prior to 5.8.1.

RemediationAI

Upgrade the apache-airflow-providers-sftp package to version 5.8.1 or later; this is the vendor-confirmed fix version stated in the oss-security advisory (https://seclists.org/oss-sec/2026/q2/941). The upstream fix is tracked in GitHub pull request #67985 (https://github.com/apache/airflow/pull/67985). If immediate upgrade is not feasible, a targeted compensating control is to avoid using SFTPOperator with operation=get against any SFTP server not under full organizational control - restrict DAGs to single-file transfers (operation=get on individual files) rather than directory downloads, as the path traversal is specific to the directory retrieval code path. Alternatively, restrict SFTP server endpoints to a known-good allowlist at the network layer and ensure the SFTP servers themselves are hardened against compromise. Note that the workarounds involve workflow redesign and do not patch the underlying sanitization flaw; upgrade to 5.8.1 is the definitive fix.