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High · 8.8 Known exploited Scanner template Public exploit CVE-2020-11978 BIT-airflow-2020-11978EUVD-2020-0032GHSA-rvmq-4x66-q7j3PYSEC-2020-14

Remote code execution (RCE) in Apache Airflow

Published Jul 16, 2020 · Updated Oct 21, 2025 · Assigned by apache

Vendor: Apache Software Foundation Product: Apache Airflow Package: apache-airflow Ecosystem: PyPI

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.

Affected products

VendorProductAffectedFixed
Apache Software Foundation Apache Airflow 1.10.10 and below —

Public exploits

Exploit or proof-of-concept code for this vulnerability is publicly available, which lowers the bar for attackers. Treat it as a reason to patch sooner.

Third-party code, not reviewed by us. Public PoCs are sometimes fake or contain malware. Read the code first and run it only in an isolated lab, against systems you are authorised to test.

Metasploit 1 module

Exploit-DB 1

GitHub 1 repository

  • pberba/CVE-2020-11978 ★ 8 · May 22, 2021

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

Sources: PoC-in-GitHub, Metasploit Framework, Exploit-DB — updated daily. Only links are listed; no exploit code is hosted here.

Automated scanner template

A ready-made Nuclei template detects this vulnerability automatically. Vulnerabilities with public scanner templates are typically probed across the internet soon after the template appears — exposed systems should be patched first.

Source: projectdiscovery/nuclei-templates (MIT) — updated daily. Only links are listed.

Affected packages

EcosystemPackageAffectedFixedRecord
PyPI apache-airflow < 1.10.11rc1 1.10.11rc1 GHSA-rvmq-4x66-q7j3

References