CVE-2026-42358 Apache Airflow: Variable masker depth-limit bypass returns cleartext nested secrets
Authenticated users can bypass secret masking to read plaintext nested secrets in Apache Airflow Variables if stored in deeply nested JSON structures.
- Exploited in the wild
- Not known
- Login needed
- Any signed-in user
- Attackable
- Over the internet
- Victim action needed
- Not needed
- Fix
- Available
What is CVE-2026-42358?
CVE-2026-42358 is a medium-severity vulnerability in Apache Airflow, published on 1 Jun 2026. Any signed-in user can exploit it over the network, with no action from the victim.
Official description
A bug in Apache Airflow's Variable response masker caused nested-key redaction (triggered by secret-suffixed key names like `password`, `token`, `secret`, `api_key`) to be bypassed when the JSON value's nesting depth exceeded the shared secrets masker's recursion limit: the masker returned the original nested item before checking the sensitive key name. An authenticated UI/API user with Variable read permission could harvest plaintext secret values stored under sensitive keys nested deep enough to exceed the masker's depth cap. Affects deployments that store sensitive values inside deeply-nested JSON Variables. This is a residual gap in the fix for CVE-2026-32690 (which covered shallower nesting via `max_depth=1`); the depth-limit boundary itself was not raised, so the same key-name bypass pattern reappears beyond the recursion cap. Users who already upgraded for CVE-2026-32690 should additionally upgrade to `apache-airflow` 3.2.2 or later to cover the deep-nesting path.
Weakness: CWE-200
Which versions are affected by CVE-2026-42358?
4 open source packages ship an affected version, including apache-airflow and airflow. It affects 1 product.
| Package | Affected | Fixed in |
|---|---|---|
apache-airflow PyPI | All versions | 3.2.2 |
apache-airflow PyPI | All versions | 3.2.2 |
apache-airflow PyPI | All versions | 3.2.2 |
airflow Bitnami | All versions | 3.2.2 |
Products include Apache Airflow.
How do I fix CVE-2026-42358?
Upgrade apache-airflow to 3.2.2 or later.
Is CVE-2026-42358 being exploited?
There is no known exploitation of CVE-2026-42358 in the wild and no public exploit code.
Other vulnerabilities in Apache Airflow
- CVE-2020-13927 Apache Airflow's Experimental API Authentication Bypass
- CVE-2020-11978 Apache Airflow Command Injection
- CVE-2026-33264 Apache Airflow: DAG author RCE on webserver via unrestricted import_string() in BaseSerialization.deserialize()
- CVE-2023-25754 Apache Airflow: Privilege escalation using airflow logs
- CVE-2023-22884 Apache Airflow, Apache Airflow MySQL Provider: Arbitrary file read via MySQL provider in Apache Airflow
Sources
Also known as BIT-airflow-2026-42358, ECHO-ce87-c209-0bd7, GHSA-33g2-gx67-c2h3, MINI-jj7p-xp2m-5xr5, MINI-wvpf-6jcg-mp82, PYSEC-2026-2343.