KEV Intelligence

Vulnerability report

Exploited in the wild Confirmed confidence In CISA KEV

CVE-2020-11978

Apache Airflow Command Injection

Apache Software Foundation / Apache Airflow · 1.10.10 and below

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Severity
CVSS 8.8 · High
Confidence
Confirmed
Exploit status
Exploited in the wild
EPSS
99.2%
First observed
—
Last observed
—

Decision summary

What security teams need to know first

Direct answers before the deeper technical record.

What it is

CVE-2020-11978 is a vulnerability affecting Apache Software Foundation Apache Airflow. An issue was found in Apache Airflow versions 1.10.10 and below. A remote code/command injection vulnerability was discovered in...

Is it exploited?

Yes. KEV Intelligence tracks this CVE as a known exploited vulnerability. Confidence is confirmed.

Who is affected?

Apache Software Foundation / Apache Airflow 1.10.10 and below.

What should we do?

Prioritize remediation. Validate affected assets and apply vendor fixes on an accelerated timeline.

Overview

An issue was found in Apache Airflow versions 1.10.10 and below

An issue was found in Apache Airflow versions 1.10.10 and below. A remote code/command injection vulnerability was discovered in one of the example DAGs shipped with Airflow which would allow any authenticated user to run arbitrary commands as the user running airflow worker/scheduler (depending on the executor in use).

If you already have examples disabled by setting load_examples=False in the config then you are not vulnerable.

Vendor Product Affected Status
Apache Software Foundation Apache Airflow 1.10.10 and below Affected
Published
16 Jul 2020
Exploitation Reported
18 Jan 2022
Attack vector
Remote
Complexity
Low
Privileges
Low
User interaction
None

Tags

metasploit nuclei_scanner apache cisa

CVE References

Exploitation evidence

Why KEV Intelligence marks this CVE as exploited

Third-party attestation and first-party sensor observation are shown separately so teams can judge the evidence chain.

Exploited in the wild

CISA

Recorded 18 Jan 2022

Independent exploitation attestation added to the KEV Intelligence record.

Proof of concept available

GitHub

Recorded 22 May 2021

Public scanner or PoC coverage increases practical exploitability.

Known exploited vulnerability sources

Per-source evidence links for KEV attestations are available through the KEV Intelligence Pro API.

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Source Added
CISA First 2022-01-18 00:00 UTC
The Shadowserver 2026-06-01 00:00 UTC

Detection

Operational artifacts and observed signals

Make the evidence actionable in scanner, SOC, and edge-control workflows.

Observed signals

Request targets
0
User-Agents
0

Raw values available in Pro and Enterprise.

Virtual patch status

No KEV Intelligence virtual patch is currently available. Future rules ship for ModSecurity, Cloudflare, and AWS WAF.

Learn about virtual patches →

Scanner Artifacts

Scanner and exploit-framework references linked to this CVE.

Scanner Reference Detected
Metasploit https://github.com/rapid7/metasploit-framework/blob/master/modules/exploits/linux/http/apache_airflow_dag_rce.rb 28 Apr 2025
Nuclei https://github.com/projectdiscovery/nuclei-templates/blob/main/http/cves/2020/CVE-2020-11978.yaml 25 Apr 2025

Risk and context

Severity, weaknesses, and research context

CVSS v3.1

8.8 High
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

EPSS

99.2%

Weaknesses

Improper Neutralization of Special Elements used in an OS Command ('OS Command Injection') CWE-78

All CVSS Scores

CVSS v3.1 8.8 High

CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

CVSS v2.0 6.5 Medium

AV:N/AC:L/Au:S/C:P/I:P/A:P

Potential Proof of Concepts

These PoCs are unverified and could contain malware. Use at your own risk.

Apache Airflow <=1.10.10 - Remote Code Execution

nuclei · Created Unknown

Timeline

From disclosure to observed exploitation

  1. Public PoC available

    Public proof-of-concept code published

  2. KEV confirmed by The Shadowserver

    Exploitation attested by an external source

  3. Metasploit module available

    Exploit module available

  4. Nuclei template available

    Scanner coverage available

  5. Added to CISA KEV

    Listed in the CISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog

  6. CVE published

    Vulnerability disclosed publicly

  7. CVE ID reserved

    Identifier reserved by the CNA

Pro API

Automate this intelligence

Confidence, exploit status, sensor telemetry, PoCs, scanner integrations, mentions, and tags are available programmatically for VM, SOC, and CTI workflows.

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  • Evidence confidence and provenance
  • First-party sensor telemetry
  • PoC and scanner references
  • Affected versions and enrichment
  • Automation-ready JSON delivery

GET /api/v2/pro/kevs/CVE-2020-11978

Free JSON includes basic KEV fields 
{
  "cve_id": "CVE-2020-11978",
  "confidence": "Confirmed",
  "cvss_score": 8.8,
  "cvss_estimated": false,
  "epss_score": 0.99189,
  "exploit_status": {
    "exploited_in_the_wild": true,
    "active_exploitation_observed": false
  },
  "sensor_telemetry": { "attempts": 0, "sensors": 0 }
}

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