Medium severity · published Sep 21, 2026
CVE-2026-82355
Apache Airflow: Session cookie silently overrides explicit Authorization bearer header, enabling session fixation
4.2
CVSS
0.7%
EPSS
No
On KEV
Description
When a request to the Airflow core API carries both a session cookie and an explicit `Authorization: Bearer` token, Airflow resolves the caller from the cookie and ignores the bearer token, inverting the intended precedence of bearer over cookie. The request then executes -- and is recorded in the audit log -- as the cookie's principal rather than the identity the client explicitly presented. Only Apache Airflow 3.3.0 and 3.3.1 are affected. Earlier releases do not contain the code path that caches the cookie-derived user, and are not vulnerable. Exploiting this requires an attacker to first place a valid session cookie of their own into the victim's browser or client: for example by cookie tossing from a sibling subdomain, through cross-site scripting in a separate application sharing a parent domain, or via a shared workstation. Deployments that host the Airflow UI on a domain shared with other applications are therefore the most exposed; a deployment on a dedicated domain with no co-hosted applications is not reachable this way. The consequence is principal confusion and misattributed audit records rather than a direct privilege escalation. Users of 3.3.0 or 3.3.1 should upgrade to Apache Airflow 3.3.2 or later, which resolves the caller from the explicitly supplied credential whenever one is present.
CVSS vector
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:L/I:L/A:N
Attack vector
Network
Complexity
High
Privileges
None
User interaction
Required
Confidentiality
Low
Integrity
Low
Availability
None
Scope
Unchanged
Exploitation
Is it being used?
Exploit prediction (EPSS)0.7% · higher than 54% of CVEs
Exploited in the wildNo evidence yet
CISA KEVNot listed
Ransomware campaign useNot known
Affected products
Which versions
AA
Apache Airflow · Apache Software Foundation
3.3.0 before 3.3.2 · source: vendor
AI
Airflow · Apache
3.3.0; 3.3.1 · source: NVD
Affected product
AA
Apache Airflow
Apache Software Foundation
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