CVE-2025-54550 PUBLISHED

Apache Airflow: RCE by race condition in example_xcom dag

Assigner: apache
Reserved: 24.07.2025 Published: 15.04.2026 Updated: 15.04.2026

The example example_xcom that was included in airflow documentation implemented unsafe pattern of reading value from xcom in the way that could be exploited to allow UI user who had access to modify XComs to perform arbitrary execution of code on the worker. Since the UI users are already highly trusted, this is a Low severity vulnerability.

It does not affect Airflow release - example_dags are not supposed to be enabled in production environment, however users following the example could replicate the bad pattern. Documentation of Airflow 3.2.0 contains version of the example with improved resiliance for that case.

Users who followed that pattern are advised to adjust their implementations accordingly.

Product Status

Vendor Apache Software Foundation
Product Apache Airflow
Versions Default: unaffected
  • affected from 0 to 3.2.0 (excl.)

Credits

  • Vincent55 Yang finder

References

Problem Types

  • CWE-94: Improper Control of Generation of Code ('Code Injection') CWE