CVE-2020-11978

Apache Airflow Command Injection

  • High 8.8
  • Exploited: added to CISA KEV 18 Jan 2022

Description

An issue was found in Apache Airflow versions 1.10.10 and below. A remote code/command injection vulnerability was discovered in one of the example DAGs shipped with Airflow which would allow any authenticated user to run arbitrary commands as the user running airflow worker/scheduler (depending on the executor in use). If you already have examples disabled by setting load_examples=False in the config then you are not vulnerable.

Key facts

Published
16 Jul 2020
Last changed
21 Oct 2025
Assigned by
apache
KEV added
18 Jan 2022
KEV fix due
18 Jul 2022
EPSS
99.189% likely to be exploited in the next 30 days, higher than 99.934% of CVEs (scores for 15 Nov 2026)
SSVC (CISA)
Exploitation: active; Automatable: no; Technical impact: total

Severity scores

Each score is shown as its source gave it. They are not averaged or merged.

  • 8.8CVSS 3.1, Highfrom CISA (ADP container)CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

What to do

  • Apply updates per vendor instructions.CISA KEV required action

Historical context and remediation

This reference retains the original CVE publication date. A recent record update does not mean a new attack occurred.

No separately sourced impact summary is available on this page yet. Consult the description, version data and dated exploitation evidence.

Version statuses below come from the CNA. An “unaffected” version is not necessarily a currently supported release or proof of a patch date. EPSS is a dated risk estimate, not a count of historical attacks.

Read the original CVE record.

Affected products

VendorProductVersions
Apache Software FoundationApache Airflow
  • 1.10.10 and below (affected)

Timeline

  1. 16 Jul 2020 Published
  2. 18 Jan 2022 CVE-2020-11978 added to CISA KEV
  3. 18 Jan 2022 Added to the CISA KEV catalogue

Weakness

Practice this bug class

HackZoneLabs has a hands-on lab on OS command injection (CWE-78).

References