CVE-2023-40273 Session fixation in Apache Airflow web interface

What is CVE-2023-40273?

CVE-2023-40273 is a high-severity vulnerability in Apache Airflow, published on 23 Aug 2023. Any signed-in user can exploit it over the network, and only if a user opens a file or follows a link.

Official description

The session fixation vulnerability allowed the authenticated user to continue accessing Airflow webserver even after the password of the user has been reset by the admin - up until the expiry of the session of the user. Other than manually cleaning the session database (for database session backend), or changing the secure_key and restarting the webserver, there were no mechanisms to force-logout the user (and all other users with that).

With this fix implemented, when using the database session backend, the existing sessions of the user are invalidated when the password of the user is reset. When using the securecookie session backend, the sessions are NOT invalidated and still require changing the secure key and restarting the webserver (and logging out all other users), but the user resetting the password is informed about it with a flash message warning displayed in the UI. Documentation is also updated explaining this behaviour.

Users of Apache Airflow are advised to upgrade to version 2.7.0 or newer to mitigate the risk associated with this vulnerability.

Weakness: CWE-384

Which versions are affected by CVE-2023-40273?

4 open source packages ship an affected version, including apache-airflow and airflow. It affects 1 product.

Products include Apache Airflow.

How do I fix CVE-2023-40273?

Upgrade apache-airflow to a fixed version for your release line: 2.7.0rc2 or 2.7.1rc1.

Is CVE-2023-40273 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2023-40273 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Other vulnerabilities in Apache Airflow

• CVE-2020-13927 Apache Airflow's Experimental API Authentication Bypass Exploited Critical 9.8
• CVE-2020-11978 Apache Airflow Command Injection Exploited High 8.8
• CVE-2026-33264 Apache Airflow: DAG author RCE on webserver via unrestricted import_string() in BaseSerialization.deserialize() Critical 9.8
• CVE-2023-25754 Apache Airflow: Privilege escalation using airflow logs Critical 9.8
• CVE-2023-22884 Apache Airflow, Apache Airflow MySQL Provider: Arbitrary file read via MySQL provider in Apache Airflow Critical 9.8

All Apache Airflow vulnerabilities

Sources

• CVE record
• NVD
• OSV
• GitHub advisory
• How this page is made

Also known as BIT-airflow-2023-40273, GHSA-pm87-24wq-r8w9, PYSEC-2023-158.