CVE-2026-68871 in Airflow
Summary
by MITRE • 08/10/2026
The Yandex Lockbox secrets backend in Apache Airflow's Yandex provider resolved a team-scoped Connection or Variable id through the team-agnostic lookup when the team-scoped lookup missed. In a deployment running multi-team mode with this backend, a caller in one team could resolve a secret belonging to another team by supplying an id that spells out that team's namespace, obtaining its credentials in full. No unusual configuration is required beyond enabling multi-team mode and using this backend. Users are advised to upgrade to apache-airflow-providers-yandex 4.5.1 or later, which refuses the team-agnostic fall-through for an id that could name a team namespace.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 08/10/2026
This vulnerability affects Apache Airflow deployments operating in multi-team mode with the Yandex Lockbox secrets backend implementation. The flaw stems from improper access control mechanisms within the provider's secret resolution logic, creating a cross-team privilege escalation scenario that undermines the fundamental security boundaries designed for multi-tenant environments.
The technical implementation error occurs during the secret lookup process where the system first attempts a team-scoped resolution for a given connection or variable identifier. When this initial team-specific lookup fails, the system incorrectly falls back to a team-agnostic search mechanism that does not validate whether the requested identifier corresponds to a legitimate team namespace. This behavior violates the principle of least privilege and creates an information disclosure vulnerability that allows unauthorized access to secrets belonging to other teams within the same Airflow deployment.
From a cybersecurity perspective, this vulnerability directly relates to CWE-284: Improper Access Control, where insufficient access control checks enable unauthorized users to access resources they should not be permitted to view. The ATT&CK framework categorizes this as privilege escalation through insecure direct object references, where the system fails to properly validate that the requesting user has authorization to access the specific resource identified by the lookup identifier. The vulnerability operates at the application layer and can be exploited without requiring any special privileges or unusual configuration beyond enabling multi-team mode.
The operational impact of this vulnerability is significant for organizations relying on Airflow's multi-team capabilities for security isolation. A malicious actor within one team could potentially extract credentials, API keys, or other sensitive information belonging to other teams simply by knowing the namespace structure used by those teams. This compromises the confidentiality and integrity of cross-team data flows and undermines the trust boundaries established by the multi-tenant architecture.
Organizations should immediately upgrade to apache-airflow-providers-yandex version 4.5.1 or later to address this vulnerability. The patched implementation enforces stricter validation that prevents the team-agnostic fall-through mechanism when dealing with identifiers that could correspond to valid team namespaces. Additionally, administrators should conduct comprehensive audits of their Airflow deployments to identify any potential exploitation attempts and ensure proper monitoring of secret access patterns. The mitigation strategy also includes reviewing and hardening the multi-team configuration settings to minimize attack surface while maintaining legitimate cross-team functionality where required.