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AirflowApplication · Apache

CVE-2020-11983

MEDIUM · 5.4 CVSS v3.1 Published 2020-07-17
Fix available
A fix is available. Upgrade to after 1.10.10 or later.
See remediation →
58/100
Remediation priority · Elevated
Remotely reachable

Official description Straight from the sourceThe vendor's or NVD's own wording, published unedited. Authoritative, but often terse — it says what broke, rarely what to do.

NVD · unedited
An issue was found in Apache Airflow versions 1.10.10 and below. It was discovered that many of the admin management screens in the new/RBAC UI handled escaping incorrectly, allowing authenticated users with appropriate permissions to create stored XSS attacks.

Technical summary Written by usOur analysis, written from the advisory, the CVSS vector and the affected-version data. It adds context the advisory leaves out, and never invents facts that are not in the source.

dbcve analysis · high confidence

Apache Airflow versions 1.10.10 and below contain a stored XSS vulnerability in the RBAC UI's admin management screens where input escaping was handled incorrectly, allowing authenticated users with appropriate permissions to inject and persist malicious JavaScript code.

MitigationUpgrade Apache Airflow to a version higher than 1.10.10, which contains the fix for the escaping issues in the RBAC UI admin screens.

Verify against the referenced sources before acting — the references below are authoritative for this CVE, this summary is not.

Affected products & versions What the vendor confirmedThe version ranges the vendor confirmed as vulnerable. If your version sits inside a range here, treat yourself as exposed until you have upgraded.

NVD · CPE data
AirflowApplication
Affected:<= 1.10.10

CVSS breakdown How the score is builtThe industry scoring standard. It rates how the flaw is reached, what it takes to exploit, and what an attacker gains — the score is derived from those, not the other way round.

From the vector
Attack vector
Network
Complexity
Low
Privileges
Low
User interaction
Required
Scope
Changed
Confidentiality
Low
Integrity
Low
Availability
None

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

Am I affected? How to checkSteps we derive from the advisory and the affected-version data, so you can decide whether this CVE reaches your setup. They are a guide, not a scan — your own configuration is the authority.

dbcve checks

Work through these to decide whether this CVE applies to you.

  1. Check installed Apache Airflow version
    Run 'airflow version' or check the installed package version via pip (pip show apache-airflow) or your package manager
    Affected if Version is 1.10.10 or lower
  2. Verify RBAC UI is enabled
    Check your airflow.cfg configuration file for the 'rbac' setting under the [webserver] section, or check if the webserver is running with RBAC mode (flask-admin vs flask-appbuilder)
    Affected if RBAC mode (rbac = True) is enabled in the configuration
  3. Confirm webserver authentication is active
    Check if authentication is configured in airflow.cfg under [webserver] or [api] sections, or if Airflow is accessible without login
    Affected if Webserver requires authentication (this is required for exploitation, as the CVE states authenticated users are needed)

You are affected if Airflow version is 1.10.10 or lower AND RBAC UI mode is enabled with authentication configured, allowing access to the admin management screens where the XSS can be injected.

Generated from the published advisory. Verify against your own configuration.

Check your environment

Paste your version and any relevant configuration and it will be compared against the affected criteria above. Do not include secrets or credentials.

AI-assisted, checked against the advisory. Informational, not a guarantee.

Remediation Closing itWhat it takes to close this. Where a vendor fix exists we point at it; where none exists we say so plainly, and can build one. Effort estimates are scoped from the advisory, not from your codebase.

From vendor data
Upgrade available Upgrade to a release after 1.10.10
Interim mitigation

Upgrade Apache Airflow to a version higher than 1.10.10, which contains the fix for the escaping issues in the RBAC UI admin screens.

Fix this in Airflow Scoped from the published advisory
  • Consultation4.0 h
  • Implementation12.0 h
  • Testing6.0 h
  • Review / QA3.0 h
25.0 hours of engineering $4,400
Get the upgrade done

An estimate, not a bill — we confirm scope with you before any work starts. Need it this week? Rush from $7,040.

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References Go to the primary sourcePrimary sources — vendor advisories, patches and trackers. Where our summary and a reference disagree, the reference wins.

Primary sources

Practitioner notes

Contributed

Peer-ranked notes from engineers who’ve handled CVE-2020-11983 in production — separate from our analysis above.

No notes yet

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What this is

A place for practitioners to share what actually worked: a mitigation you’ve tested, a configuration change, a version- or environment-specific caveat, or a link to a verified patch. The most useful notes rise to the top as peers upvote them, so the signal stays high.

What belongs here
  • Verified mitigations, workarounds, and config changes
  • Version or environment caveats, and links to real fixes
  • No weaponised exploit code, or anything meant to cause harm
  • No spam, self-promotion, credentials, or personal data