Apache Airflow Vulnerable to Deserialization of Untrusted Data
Apache Airflow's scheduler-side deadline-reference decoder (`SerializedCustomReference.deserialize_reference`) imported and dispatched arbitrary class paths drawn from DAG-author-controlled serialized state without an allowlist or plugin-registry gate. A DAG author whose code reaches the scheduler — the default on single-host deployments where the DAG bundle is importable from the scheduler process — could embed a custom `DeadlineReference` whose serialized form named an attacker-controlled module path, causing the scheduler to `import_string(...)` and instantiate that class with a live SQLAlchemy session attached. Affects deployments where DAG-author code is less trusted than the scheduler process. Users are advised to upgrade to `apache-airflow` 3.2.2 or later.
describes (1)
Related CVEs.
| ID | severity | exploitable | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| CVE-2026-45360US | — | — | ||
Apache Airflow's scheduler-side deadline-reference decoder (`SerializedCustomReference.deserialize_reference`) imported and dispatched arbitrary class paths drawn from DAG-author-c… | ||||
references
External citations — patches, advisories, analysis.
- http://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2026/05/31/12WEB
- https://github.com/apache/airflowPACKAGE
- https://github.com/apache/airflow/pull/61461WEB
- https://github.com/apache/airflow/pull/66737WEB
- https://github.com/pypa/advisory-database/tree/main/vulns/apache-airflow/PYSEC-2026-186.yamlWEB
- https://lists.apache.org/thread/q227dghjwgfz8xsxrf2pwpz4wk43zm83WEB
- https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-45360ADVISORY
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