Apache Airflow Task Execution API Stored XCom Remote Code Execution Vulnerability: CVE-2026-111421
- Investigating(current)
- Trending(upcoming)
- Workaround available(upcoming)
- Resolved(upcoming)
Executive summary
Apache Airflow's Task Execution API stores XCom values written by tasks without enforcing reserved-key checks, allowing DAG authors to write malicious XComs that trigger arbitrary class instantiation when viewed via the API. Additionally, the Airflow scheduler fully deserializes XCom values written by task code during dependency evaluation, presenting risks in deployments where DAG authors are untrusted.
No verified workaround yet
None of the linked reports describe a mitigation. Follow this incident to hear when one appears.
Official fixThe Task Execution API and scheduler lack proper validation and reserved-key checks on XCom values written by tasks, permitting arbitrary class instantiation and deserialization of untrusted data.
Evidence
3 reports · 3 CVEShow
- [1]CVE First reportApache Airflow's Task Execution API stored XCom values written by a task without the reserved-key check applied elsewhere, so a Dag author's task: CVE-2026-111421 (High)(opens security advisory in a new tab)
High severity. Apache Airflow's Task Execution API stored XCom values written by a task without the reserved-key check applied elsewhere, so a Dag author's task could write an XCom that, when a user later viewed it through the API with deserialization enabled, made the API server instantiate classes from the `airflow.*` namespace with arguments the Dag author chose. This is an incomplete fix for CVE-2026-59242: users who applied that fix in apache-airflow 3.3.1 remain affected through this…
by Tenable 0upvotes 0comments
- [2]CVEApache Airflow's scheduler fully deserializes XCom values written by task code while evaluating task dependencies.: CVE-2026-86829 (High)(opens security advisory in a new tab)
High severity. Apache Airflow's scheduler fully deserializes XCom values written by task code while evaluating task dependencies. A Dag author, who controls what a task writes to XCom, therefore controls data that is deserialized inside the scheduler process - a context the Airflow security model reserves for code installed by the Deployment Manager, above the worker-scoped execution capability a Dag author is documented to have. Deployments that treat Dag authors as less trusted than…
by Tenable 0upvotes 0comments93% match
- [3]CVEApache Airflow: CVE-2026-96285 (High)(opens security advisory in a new tab)
High severity. Apache Airflow 3.3.1 shipped a fix for CVE-2026-67260 that checks the scheduler's decoded `next_kwargs` value is a dictionary, but performs that check only after deserializing the whole stored payload. Deserialization reconstructs nested objects of classes permitted by the deserialization allow-list — which by default includes Airflow's own classes — and runs their constructors inside the scheduler process before the check can reject the value. A Dag author, who controls a…
by Tenable 0upvotes 0comments95% match
Timeline
- First report on security advisory
Apache Airflow's Task Execution API stored XCom values written by a task without the reserved-key check applied elsewhere, so a Dag author's task: CVE-2026-111421 (High)
Source