CVE-2026-41017 is a medium-severity (CVSS 5.9) CWE-614 vulnerability in apache-airflow. A fix is available for apache-airflow — see the affected versions and patch details below.
Apache Airflow: JWT cookie missing Secure flag in JWTRefreshMiddleware behind HTTPS-terminating proxy
Exploitation Status
No confirmed exploitation observed yet
- CISA’s own triage has not observed active exploitation or public proof-of-concept code for this CVE as of its last assessment.
Exploitation and automatability from CISA’s SSVC triage for CVE-2026-41017.
EPSS Exploitation Probability
Probability of exploitation in the next 30 days, from FIRST.org EPSS.
How urgent is this, really
CVE-2026-41017 by exploitation likelihood (EPSS) against impact (CVSS). Outside the shaded patch-first corner.
Where this sits among everything scored
Of 388,997 CVEs with a current EPSS score, this one falls in the < 10% band (highlighted). Counts from FIRST.org, log-scaled.
Real-World Exposure
apache-airflowReal-time download stats are indexed for npm and PyPI packages. This vulnerability affects PyPI packages — download data is not available via public APIs for these ecosystems.
Description
Apache Airflow's JWTRefreshMiddleware set the JWT auth cookie without the Secure flag, so deployments running the Airflow API server behind an HTTPS-terminating reverse proxy (e.g. nginx / Envoy / a managed load balancer that terminates TLS and forwards plaintext to the API server, the default cloud-native topology) would have the user's session JWT replayed over any cleartext HTTP request to the same host. A network-positioned attacker (Wi-Fi MITM, hostile LAN, captive-portal proxy) could induce a logged-in user's browser to issue an HTTP request to the deployment's hostname and capture the JWT cookie out of that request, then replay it against the authenticated API. Affects deployments where the Airflow API server is reached through a TLS-terminating proxy and the cookie's secure-by-default protection is load-bearing for session integrity. Users are advised to upgrade to apache-airflow 3.2.2 or later.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🐍PyPI | apache-airflow | ≥ 3.0.0&&< 3.2.2 | 3.2.2pip install --upgrade 'apache-airflow==3.2.2' |
Affected Products
airflowapacheDetection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for apache-airflow, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update apache-airflow to 3.2.2 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2026-41017 is resolved across your whole dependency graph.
Workarounds
If you can't upgrade right away: gate or disable the affected feature, validate untrusted input at the boundary, and avoid passing attacker-controlled data into the vulnerable path. O3's runtime protection blocks exploitation in production as an interim safeguard until the upgrade lands.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is CVE-2026-41017 in your dependencies?
Find it across PyPI, including transitive dependencies.