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Apache Airflow: Session cookie silently overrides explicit Authorization bearer header, enabling session fixation

Type: advisorySource: OSV1 source record

When a request to the Airflow core API carries both a session cookie and an explicit `Authorization: Bearer` token, Airflow resolves the caller from the cookie and ignores the bearer token, inverting the intended precedence of bearer over cookie. The request then executes -- and is recorded in the audit log -- as the cookie's principal rather than the identity the client explicitly presented. Only Apache Airflow 3.3.0 and 3.3.1 are affected. Earlier releases do not contain the code path that caches the cookie-derived user, and are not vulnerable. Exploiting this requires an attacker to first place a valid session cookie of their own into the victim's browser or client: for example by cookie tossing from a sibling subdomain, through cross-site scripting in a separate application sharing a parent domain, or via a shared workstation. Deployments that host the Airflow UI on a domain shared with other applications are therefore the most exposed; a deployment on a dedicated domain with no co-hosted applications is not reachable this way. The consequence is principal confusion and misattributed audit records rather than a direct privilege escalation. Users of 3.3.0 or 3.3.1 should upgrade to Apache Airflow 3.3.2 or later, which resolves the caller from the explicitly supplied credential whenever one is present.

Announced Source revision 1
Original source ↗

BIT-airflow-2026-82355

Primary source · Revision 1

Imported from structured advisory data. Source references identify upstream records or fields; verify affected versions and your deployed configuration.

Security context

Source reference: osv:BIT-airflow-2026-82355

airflow

Source reference: /affected/0/package/name

Affected versions
Not stated in this record
Fixed versions
3.3.2

Source reference: /affected/0/ranges

Prerequisites
Not stated in this record

Structured affected-version data

Original package identities and version rules from this source.

[
  {
    "ranges": [
      {
        "type": "SEMVER",
        "events": [
          {
            "introduced": "3.3.0"
          },
          {
            "fixed": "3.3.2"
          }
        ]
      }
    ],
    "package": {
      "name": "airflow",
      "purl": "pkg:bitnami/airflow",
      "ecosystem": "Bitnami"
    },
    "severity": [
      {
        "type": "CVSS_V3",
        "score": "CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:L/I:L/A:N"
      }
    ],
    "database_specific": {
      "source": "https://github.com/bitnami/vulndb/tree/main/data/airflow/BIT-airflow-2026-82355.json"
    }
  }
]
Related CVEs
CVE-2026-82355

Source reference: /aliases

Publisher severity

medium

Source reference: /database_specific/severity

Event
#25941 · Revision 1
Added to Heist Feed
Publisher date
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