{"id":"CVE-2021-38540","url":"https://www.cyber-defence.io/tools/cve/CVE-2021-38540","generatedAt":"2026-11-05T01:06:46.960Z","title":"This allowed unauthenticated users to hit that endpoint to add/modify Airflow variables used in DAGs, potentially resulting in a denial of service, information disclosure or remote code execution.","description":"The variable import endpoint was not protected by authentication in Airflow >=2.0.0, <2.1.3. This allowed unauthenticated users to hit that endpoint to add/modify Airflow variables used in DAGs, potentially resulting in a denial of service, information disclosure or remote code execution. This issue affects Apache Airflow >=2.0.0, <2.1.3.","published":"2021-09-09T15:15:09.000Z","lastModified":"2026-06-17T04:02:20.000Z","status":"Modified","sourceIdentifier":"security@apache.org","cvss":{"version":"3.1","score":9.8,"severity":"CRITICAL","vector":"CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H"},"cwe":["CWE-269","CWE-306"],"affected":["apache/airflow"],"epss":{"score":0.80938,"percentile":0.99631,"date":"2026-11-03","history":[]},"kev":{"listed":false},"exploits":{"count":0,"verified":false,"firstPublished":null,"source":"Exploit-DB (https://gitlab.com/exploit-database/exploitdb)","entries":[]},"verdict":{"level":"urgent","text":"EPSS puts the probability of exploitation in the next 30 days at 80.9%, higher than 100% of all known CVEs. Patch or mitigate before the next change window."},"changes":[],"references":[{"url":"https://lists.apache.org/thread.html/rac2ed9118f64733e47b4f1e82ddc8c8020774698f13328ca742b03a2%40%3Cannounce.apache.org%3E","source":"security@apache.org"},{"url":"https://lists.apache.org/thread.html/rb34c3dd1a815456355217eef34060789f771b6f77c3a3dec77de2064%40%3Cusers.airflow.apache.org%3E","tags":["Mailing List","Vendor Advisory"],"source":"security@apache.org"},{"url":"https://lists.apache.org/thread.html/rac2ed9118f64733e47b4f1e82ddc8c8020774698f13328ca742b03a2%40%3Cannounce.apache.org%3E","source":"af854a3a-2127-422b-91ae-364da2661108"},{"url":"https://lists.apache.org/thread.html/rb34c3dd1a815456355217eef34060789f771b6f77c3a3dec77de2064%40%3Cusers.airflow.apache.org%3E","tags":["Mailing List","Vendor Advisory"],"source":"af854a3a-2127-422b-91ae-364da2661108"}],"sources":{"nvd":"https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2021-38540","epss":"https://www.first.org/epss/","kev":"https://www.cisa.gov/known-exploited-vulnerabilities-catalog","exploitdb":"https://www.exploit-db.com/"},"licence":"CC BY 4.0 — link back to the CVE Explorer if you publish the results; upstream data remains subject to its own terms."}