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Airflow HashiCorp Provider EUVDEUVD-2026-86475

| CVE-2026-97636 MEDIUM
Authorization Bypass Through User-Controlled Key (CWE-639)
2026-09-24 apache GHSA-42x2-wfr5-pcgx
6.5
CVSS 3.1 · Vendor: apache
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Attack ChainAIDerived

Hypothetical attack flow derived from CVE metadata – not a confirmed exploit chain

  1. Access
    Authenticate as team-scoped Dag author
  2. Delivery
    Craft Variable key with path separator
  3. Exploit
    Team-scoped Vault lookup misses
  4. Execution
    Fallback resolves other team's secret path
  5. Impact
    Read cross-team secret via Execution API

Vulnerability Assessment

Weakness
CWE
OWASP Top 10:2025
A01:2025 - Broken Access Control
ASVS 5.0
V8 - Authorization Object-level authorization, IDOR prevention
Exploitation Conditions

Requires a MULTI-TEAM Apache Airflow deployment configured with the HashiCorp Vault secrets backend (VaultBackend); single-team deployments are not affected because no cross-team boundary exists. The attacker must be an authenticated Dag author scoped to at least one team and able to submit Dag code that requests an Airflow Variable via the Execution API Variables route. Exploitation depends on supplying a Variable key containing a path separator so that, after the team-scoped lookup misses, the backend falls back to a team-agnostic path concatenated from the unvalidated key. Impact is limited to read-only disclosure of another team's secrets (no write/integrity or availability effect). Deployments not using the Vault backend, or not using multi-team scoping, are outside the vulnerable configuration.

Impact

No CVSS score or vector was provided by the vendor (CVSS: N/A), so raw-signal comparison is limited. There is no EPSS score, no CISA KEV listing, and no public exploit code - status: no public exploit identified at time of analysis. My independent assessment (CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:N/A:N, ~6.8 MEDIUM) reflects a network-reachable, low-privilege, read-only cross-tenant secret disclosure. The real-world risk is materially constrained by preconditions: it only affects MULTI-TEAM Airflow deployments that use the HashiCorp Vault secrets backend - single-team deployments have no cross-team boundary and are explicitly unaffected. The attacker must already be an authenticated Dag author scoped to one team (PR:L), so this is an insider/tenant-boundary escalation, not a mass-exploitable perimeter bug. This is one of a documented family of identical-class flaws (CVE-2026-86465, CVE-2026-68870/68871/68872 in the Akeyless, Azure Key Vault, Yandex Lockbox and Amazon backends), which raises confidence the root cause is real and systematically understood, but the absence of EPSS/KEV/POC and the narrow deployment prerequisite make this a moderate-priority patch for affected multi-team operators rather than an emergency. Note the input Tags include 'Microsoft', which is a wrong-vendor artifact - the affected software is Apache Airflow's HashiCorp provider, unrelated to Microsoft.

Exploit ScenarioDerived

In a multi-team Airflow deployment using the Vault secrets backend, a Dag author scoped to Team A writes ordinary Dag code that requests an Airflow Variable whose key contains a path separator (e.g. crafted to point at Team B's secret path). The team-scoped lookup misses, the backend falls back to a team-agnostic path concatenated from the unvalidated key, and Team B's secret is returned to Team A's Dag via the Execution API Variables route. No public exploit code is known, but the technique requires no special tooling beyond normal Dag authoring.

This Month Plan within 30 days. Why: MEDIUM severity (CVSS 4.0-6.9).
Patch available 0.2% exploitation probability (EPSS)

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AnalysisAIv1 – Sep 24, 2026

Cross-team secret disclosure in the HashiCorp Vault secrets backend for Apache Airflow lets an authenticated Dag author scoped to one team read Vault secrets belonging to a different team in multi-team deployments. The flaw (CWE-639, authorization bypass through a user-controlled key) triggers when the team-scoped lookup misses and the backend falls back to a team-agnostic path concatenated from the unvalidated Variable key; because the Execution API Variables route accepts a path-shaped key, the traversal is reachable from ordinary Dag code. The vendor assigned no CVSS score (CVSS: N/A), while the independent assessment rates it CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:N/A:N - read-only disclosure with scope change and no integrity or availability impact; single-team deployments are unaffected, no public exploit code has been identified at time of analysis, and the vendor-released fix is apache-airflow-providers-hashicorp 4.8.0.

RemediationAI

Vendor-released patch: apache-airflow-providers-hashicorp 4.8.0 - upgrade to 4.8.0 or later, which reworks the path logic in VaultBackend to accept explicit ordered path lists for connections_path, variables_path, and config_path, normalizes each configured path, and deprecates global_secrets_path in favor of an operator-declared fallback entry; see https://github.com/apache/airflow/pull/70006 and the advisory at https://lists.apache.org/thread/l0fogo9dh5v07vnsxnhoh3c74othkr51. If the upgrade cannot be applied immediately, remove reliance on the vulnerable fallback by unsetting global_secrets_path and configuring only a single team-scoped path per backend instance (or per Airflow deployment), noting the trade-off that shared/global secrets must then be duplicated into each team path or provided through a separate mechanism; additionally, narrow the Vault token policy attached to the backend so it can read only the intended team path prefixes, which causes Vault's own authorization layer to reject traversed paths even if the key sanitization is bypassed - at the cost of no longer transparently serving legitimately shared secrets through the fallback. Deployments that are single-team, or that do not use the HashiCorp Vault secrets backend, require no action for this CVE. Restricting which users may author Dags and access the Execution API Variables route reduces exposure but does not remove the flaw, since exploitation relies on ordinary Dag code rather than elevated privileges; note that this issue only discloses secrets and does not permit writes, so no data-integrity or availability remediation is needed beyond routine Vault secret rotation for any values that may have been exposed.

Affected VersionsENISA

Apache Airflow HashiCorp provider 4.6.0 <4.8.0

Affected Packages

euvd apache_airflow_hashicorp_provider fix: 4.8.0

Source: OSV (Open Source Vulnerabilities)

Affects your stack

Affects 1 package in euvd

Checking this CVE against your own stacks and servers is part of the Basic plan and up.

Technical ContextAI · show details

The vulnerable component is VaultBackend in the apache-airflow-providers-hashicorp package, one of Airflow's pluggable secrets backends that reads Connections, Variables, and Airflow configuration out of HashiCorp Vault using configurable paths (connections_path, variables_path, config_path). In multi-team deployments the operator historically relied on a global_secrets_path prefix appended as a fallback so that shared secrets could live alongside team-specific ones; the team-scoped lookup runs first, and on a miss the backend builds a team-agnostic path by concatenating the base path with the requested key. Because that key is attacker-controlled and never validated for path separators, a key shaped like a path escapes the team prefix and resolves another team's secret - the classic CWE-639 authorization-bypass-through-user-controlled-key pattern, in which the resource identifier supplied by the low-privileged caller is itself trusted as an authorization boundary. The referenced fix (apache/airflow PR #70006) reworks this by letting connections_path, variables_path, and config_path accept an ordered list of paths with first-hit-wins fallback, normalizing each entry (stripping trailing slashes via _normalize_paths), and deprecating global_secrets_path by converting it into an explicit appended fallback entry with an AirflowProviderDeprecationWarning - so fallback destinations come from operator configuration rather than from the request key. The same defect class was previously addressed in the Akeyless (CVE-2026-86465), Azure Key Vault (CVE-2026-68870), Yandex Lockbox (CVE-2026-68871), and Amazon Web Services (CVE-2026-68872) secrets backends, indicating a systematic review of how Airflow secrets backends join untrusted keys onto configured paths.

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Severity by source

Vendor (apache) PRIMARY 6.5 MEDIUM
AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N
vuln.today AI 7.7 HIGH

Network-reachable via Execution API by a low-privilege team-scoped Dag author (PR:L); crossing the team security boundary is a scope change (S:C); read-only secret disclosure gives C:H, I:N, A:N.

3.1 AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:N/A:N
4.0 AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:L/UI:N/VC:H/VI:N/VA:N/SC:H/SI:N/SA:N

Primary rating from Vendor (apache).

CVSS VectorVendor: apache

Attack Vector
Network
Attack Complexity
Low
Privileges Required
Low
User Interaction
None
Scope
Unchanged
Confidentiality
High
Integrity
None
Availability
None

Lifecycle Timeline

1
CVSS changed
Sep 25, 2026 - 17:22 NVD
6.5 (MEDIUM)

DescriptionCVE.org

Apache Airflow HashiCorp provider: the HashiCorp Vault secrets backend's team-scope guard can be bypassed with a user-controlled key. In a multi-team deployment, a Dag author scoped to one team can supply a Variable key containing a path separator that causes the backend to resolve a secret belonging to a different team, because after the team-scoped lookup misses the backend falls back to a team-agnostic path concatenated from the unvalidated key. The Execution API Variables route accepts a path-shaped key, so this is reachable from ordinary Dag code.

Affects multi-team deployments using the HashiCorp Vault secrets backend. Single-team deployments are not affected, as there is no cross-team boundary to cross. This is the same class as CVE-2026-86465, CVE-2026-68870, CVE-2026-68871 and CVE-2026-68872 in the Akeyless, Azure Key Vault, Yandex Lockbox and Amazon secrets backends.

Users of apache-airflow-providers-hashicorp are recommended to upgrade to version 4.8.0 or later, which fixes the issue.

Threat Intelligence Overview

EPSS Score
0.2%
Top 90% exploitable
Prevalence
Medium
Apache Airflow is widely used, but only multi-team deployments with the Vault backend are affected
Social Media
1
Sightings
Data Quality
5 sources
Confidence: Medium

How this decision was reached

The engine reads each signal below and applies a fixed list of rules from top to bottom. The first rule that matches sets the recommended action – like a statement, every line is shown.

SignalValue
Severity MEDIUM
CISA KEV No
Public POC No
EPSS 0.2%
Patch available Yes
Active threat No
Deciding rule
MEDIUM severity (CVSS 4.0-6.9)
What every action level means
Emergency Immediate action required. Criteria: CRITICAL + in CISA KEV (actively exploited) without patch, OR CRITICAL + EPSS > 30% without patch, OR CRITICAL + active threat signals without patch.
Act Now Prioritize within 24-48h. Criteria: in KEV with patch available, OR CRITICAL + public POC, OR HIGH + EPSS > 10%, OR CRITICAL + active threat, OR any CRITICAL severity.
This Week Schedule remediation this week. Criteria: HIGH severity (CVSS 7.0-8.9). Patch within normal change window.
This Month Plan within 30 days. Criteria: MEDIUM severity (CVSS 4.0-6.9), lower exploitation probability. Include in regular patch cycle.
Monitor Track and reassess. Criteria: LOW severity (CVSS 0.1-3.9), minimal exploitation risk. No immediate action needed.

SSVC AssessmentENISA

SSVC Decision· derived
Scheduled
Exploitation
None
System Exposure· derived
Open
Automatable
No
Human Impact· derived
Medium
Technical Impact
Partial

Priority Score

32
Low Medium High Critical
KEV: 0
EPSS: 0
CVSS: +32
PoC: 0
Weaponized: 0
Threat intel: 0
Gov advisory: 0

Attack Technique

Authentication bypass attacks exploit flaws in the verification mechanisms that control access to systems and applications.

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