Cyber Resilience

CVE-2026-40690

Apache Airflow ≤ 3.2.1

Published
24 April 2026
Modified
27 April 2026
Patch / advisory
CVSS Score v3.1 4.3
Click a component to see what it means
Raw vectorCVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:N/A:N
EPSS Score 0.0035 28th percentile
Risk Priority 35 floored blend · peak EPSS

Summary

CVE-2026-40690 is a medium-severity Insufficient Granularity of Access Control (CWE-1220) vulnerability in Apache Airflow. Its CVSS base score is 4.3 (Medium).

Operationally, exploitation aligns with the MITRE ATT&CK technique System Information Discovery (T1082); ranked at the 28th percentile by exploit likelihood (below the median); it is not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog.

The strongest mitigations our analysis identified map to AC-3 (Access Enforcement) and AC-4 (Information Flow Enforcement) — see the control section below for these in your framework.

EU & UK References

Vulnerability Data

The asset dependency graph did not restrict nodes by the viewer's DAG read permissions: a user with read access to at least one DAG could browse the asset graph for any other asset in the deployment and learn the existence…

more

and names of DAGs and assets outside their authorized scope. Users are recommended to upgrade to version 3.2.1, which fixes this issue.

CWE(s)

Related Threats

MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise TechniquesAI

T1082 System Information Discovery Discovery
An adversary may attempt to get detailed information about the operating system and hardware, including version, patches, hotfixes, service packs, and architecture.
T1213 Data from Information Repositories Collection
Adversaries may leverage information repositories to mine valuable information.
Why these techniques?

Vuln enables unauthorized enumeration of system assets/DAGs via the dependency graph (T1082 System Information Discovery) and access to data in an information repository beyond granted permissions (T1213).

Confidence: MEDIUM · MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise v19.0

CVEs Like This One

CVE-2026-38743Same product: Apache Airflow
CVE-2026-24098Same product: Apache Airflow
CVE-2026-48891Same product: Apache Airflow
CVE-2026-34538Same product: Apache Airflow
CVE-2026-28563Same product: Apache Airflow
CVE-2026-41014Same product: Apache Airflow
CVE-2026-40963Same product: Apache Airflow
CVE-2026-30911Same product: Apache Airflow
CVE-2026-30912Same product: Apache Airflow
CVE-2023-22888Same product: Apache Airflow

Affected Assets

apache
airflow
≤ 3.2.1

Mitigating Controls

Control response

Prevent
Stop it (NIST 800-53)
  • AC-3 Access Enforcement
  • AC-4 Information Flow Enforcement
  • AC-6 Least Privilege
Detect
Catch it (NIST detect / respond)

Harden
Shrink the surface (DISA STIG)
  • 4 hardening rules · 4 OS baselines
Validate
Prove the fix (OWASP ASVS)
  • V16.4.2
  • V8.4.2
  • V11.7.1
  • V13.2.4

Mitigating Controls (NIST 800-53 r5) AI

prevent

Directly enforces DAG read permissions on every node of the asset dependency graph so unauthorized users cannot traverse or discover out-of-scope assets.

prevent

Enforces information-flow rules that block the graph view from returning DAG or asset metadata the requesting user is not authorized to read.

prevent

Limits each user to the minimal set of DAG read permissions, reducing the attack surface even if graph-level enforcement is incomplete.

Mitigating Controls (NIST CSF 2.0) AI

Derived directly from the weakness types (CWEs) cited in the NVD entry via our AI-authored CWE→CSF cross-walk (authority under review) — links open the control.

PR.IR-01 mostly match
prevents

PR.IR-01's segmentation + zero-trust rules directly enforce minimum-necessary access at network boundaries, removing most instances of overly broad policy; CWE-1220 can still exist in application-layer or intra-segment controls that this single outcome does not address.

PR.PS-06 partial match
prevents

PR.PS-06's general SDLC practices can surface granularity issues during design/review (partial prevention) but do not specifically target access-control policy breadth, so they remove only part of CWE-1220's risk.

DE.AE-06 none match
is degraded by

CWE-1220 permits unauthorized access to sensitive assets but neither prevents nor impairs the delivery of adverse-event information to authorized recipients.

Mitigating Controls (ISO/IEC 27001:2022 Annex A) AI

Derived directly from the weakness types (CWEs) cited in the NVD entry via our AI-authored CWE→ISO cross-walk (authority under review) — links open the control.

degrades

Directly requires information-access restriction at the level of individual assets and operations, addressing the granularity gap.

prevents

Establishes the overarching access-control policy whose granularity directly determines whether the weakness exists.

prevents

Defines the assignment and review of access rights; insufficient granularity in those rights is the root of CWE-1220.

prevents

Specifies management of privileged access rights, where overly broad privileges are a common manifestation of the weakness.

none

Limits use of privileged utilities; overly coarse access rules can still allow unauthorized utility access.

References