CVE-2023-51702
MediumCVSS 6.5Exploitation Probability (EPSS)
Low risk30th percentile - higher than 30% of all known CVEs
Summary
Since version 5.2.0, when using deferrable mode with a Kubernetes configuration file for authentication, the Airflow worker serializes this file as a dictionary and stores it in metadata without encryption. In versions 2.3.0-2.6.0, the dictionary is also logged as plain text in the triggerer service. This allows anyone with access to metadata or logs to obtain the configuration file and access the Kubernetes cluster.
Risk Assessment
The organization is at risk of leaking sensitive Kubernetes authentication credentials, potentially leading to unauthorized cluster access and privilege escalation.
Recommendation
Upgrade Apache Airflow to version 7.0.0 or later, which stops serializing file contents and instead provides the file path.
Original NVD description (English source)
Since version 5.2.0, when using deferrable mode with the path of a Kubernetes configuration file for authentication, the Airflow worker serializes this configuration file as a dictionary and sends it to the triggerer by storing it in metadata without any encryption. Additionally, if used with an Airflow version between 2.3.0 and 2.6.0, the configuration dictionary will be logged as plain text in the triggerer service without masking. This allows anyone with access to the metadata or triggerer log to obtain the configuration file and use it to access the Kubernetes cluster. This behavior was changed in version 7.0.0, which stopped serializing the file contents and started providing the file path instead to read the contents into the trigger. Users are recommended to upgrade to version 7.0.0, which fixes this issue.