GHSA-qf38-jq28-3ccq is a critical-severity (CVSS 9.1) Path Traversal vulnerability in apache-airflow-providers-sftp. A fix is available for apache-airflow-providers-sftp — see the affected versions and patch details below.
Apache Airflow SFTP provider: Path traversal in SFTPHook.retrieve_directory
Exploitation Status
No confirmed exploitation observed yet
- CISA assesses this as automatable — exploitation doesn’t require manual, per-target effort, which raises the odds of mass scanning and opportunistic attacks.
- A successful exploit gives an attacker total control of the affected component, not partial access.
- 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 GHSA-qf38-jq28-3ccq.
EPSS Exploitation Probability
EPSS (Exploit Prediction Scoring System) is a daily probability model maintained by FIRST.org. It estimates the likelihood a CVE will be exploited in production environments within the next 30 days, derived from real-world threat intelligence signals.
How urgent is this, really
GHSA-qf38-jq28-3ccq plotted by exploitation likelihood (EPSS) against impact (CVSS). The shaded corner — EPSS 50%+ and CVSS 7.0+ — is where this CVE doesn't sit, though severity or exploitability alone can still warrant action.
Where this sits among everything scored
Of 379,842 CVEs with a current EPSS score, this one falls in the < 10% band (highlighted). Real counts from FIRST.org, not a sample — log-scaled since the landscape is heavily right-skewed.
Real-World Exposure
apache-airflow-providers-sftpReal-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
A path traversal in the SFTP provider (SFTPHook.retrieve_directory / SFTPOperator(operation=get)) let a malicious or compromised remote SFTP server write files outside the configured local destination directory via crafted directory-entry names. No Airflow account is required — the attack surface is any deployment downloading directories from an untrusted SFTP server. Upgrade apache-airflow-providers-sftp to 5.8.1 or later.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🐍PyPI | apache-airflow-providers-sftp | all versions | 5.8.1pip install --upgrade 'apache-airflow-providers-sftp==5.8.1' |
Detection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for apache-airflow-providers-sftp, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update apache-airflow-providers-sftp to 5.8.1 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms GHSA-qf38-jq28-3ccq is resolved across your whole dependency graph.
Workarounds
Resolve every user-supplied path to its canonical form and reject anything that escapes the intended directory, and run the component under an account that has no read or write access outside the directory it legitimately serves.
How O3 protects you
O3 Security's impact-aware SCA analyses which vulnerable code paths your application actually calls, so a match like GHSA-qf38-jq28-3ccq can be triaged on real exposure rather than presence alone.
Tailored to GHSA-qf38-jq28-3ccq. Runtime protection reduces exposure until a permanent patch is applied and verified — it complements patching, it doesn't replace it.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is GHSA-qf38-jq28-3ccq in your dependencies?
O3 Security finds GHSA-qf38-jq28-3ccq across PyPI dependencies, including transitive ones, and its impact-aware SCA ranks findings by whether your code actually calls the vulnerable path.