CVE-2026-49298
Published: 01 June 2026
Summary
CVE-2026-49298 is a high-severity Insertion of Sensitive Information into Externally-Accessible File or Directory (CWE-538) vulnerability in Apache Airflow. Its CVSS base score is 8.8 (High).
Operationally, exploitation aligns with the MITRE ATT&CK technique Steal Application Access Token (T1528); ranked at the 38.4th percentile by exploit likelihood (below the median); it is not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog.
OWASP Top 10 for Web (2025)
EU & UK References
- 🇪🇺 ENISA EUVD: EUVD-2026-33580
Vulnerability details
A bug in Apache Airflow's KubernetesExecutor caused JWT tokens used by worker pods to authenticate against the Execution API to be passed to the worker container as command-line arguments visible in the pod spec. An authenticated UI/API user with Kubernetes…
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read-only access to the cluster (e.g. `pods/get` in the Airflow namespace) could harvest the JWT from `kubectl describe pod` output and then call state-mutating Execution API endpoints — triggering Dag runs, clearing runs, reading or writing Variables / Connections / XComs — as if they were a running task. Affects deployments using the `KubernetesExecutor`. Users are advised to upgrade to `apache-airflow` 3.2.2 or later. This is the airflow-core half of the same vulnerability addressed by [CVE-2026-27173](https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2026-27173), which shipped the apache-airflow-providers-cncf-kubernetes side of the fix. Deployments that already upgraded `apache-airflow-providers-cncf-kubernetes` to 10.17.0 or later per the CVE-2026-27173 advisory should additionally upgrade `apache-airflow` to 3.2.2 or later to close the core-side surface — the two fixes are complementary, not duplicates.
- CWE(s)
Related Threats
MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise TechniquesAI
Why these techniques?
JWT exposure in pod spec directly enables token theft (T1528); stolen token then abused for API impersonation (T1550.001).
CVEs Like This One
Affected Assets
Mitigating Controls
Likely Mitigating Controls AI
Per-CVE control mapping for this CVE has not run yet; the list below is derived from the weakness types (CWEs) cited in the NVD entry.
Pre- and post-publication reviews prevent insertion of sensitive information into externally-accessible public locations.
Monitors for sensitive information placed in externally accessible files or directories.
The map shows if data actions result in sensitive information being placed in externally accessible locations.
Isolation and eradication reduce the ability to exploit sensitive information inserted into externally-accessible files or directories.
Approved categorization forces identification of externally accessible files that contain sensitive content so they receive proper protection.
The pre-implementation review identifies externally accessible files or directories containing PII and drives access restrictions or removal.
Tainting makes it possible to determine when sensitive data has been removed from externally accessible files or directories.
OPSEC practices stop placement of supply-chain information into locations accessible to external parties.