Severity: low 

Affected versions:

- Apache Airflow 3.3.0 before 3.3.2

Description:

When a request to the Airflow core API carries both a session cookie and an 
explicit `Authorization: Bearer` token, Airflow resolves the caller from the 
cookie and ignores the bearer token, inverting the intended precedence of 
bearer over cookie. The request then executes -- and is recorded in the audit 
log -- as the cookie's principal rather than the identity the client explicitly 
presented.

Only Apache Airflow 3.3.0 and 3.3.1 are affected. Earlier releases do not 
contain the code path that caches the cookie-derived user, and are not 
vulnerable.

Exploiting this requires an attacker to first place a valid session cookie of 
their own into the victim's browser or client: for example by cookie tossing 
from a sibling subdomain, through cross-site scripting in a separate 
application sharing a parent domain, or via a shared workstation. Deployments 
that host the Airflow UI on a domain shared with other applications are 
therefore the most exposed; a deployment on a dedicated domain with no 
co-hosted applications is not reachable this way. The consequence is principal 
confusion and misattributed audit records rather than a direct privilege 
escalation.

Users of 3.3.0 or 3.3.1 should upgrade to Apache Airflow 3.3.2 or later, which 
resolves the caller from the explicitly supplied credential whenever one is 
present.

Credit:

Claude Security Scans (tool)
Jarek Potiuk (remediation developer)

References:

https://github.com/apache/airflow/pull/72225
https://github.com/apache/airflow/pull/72723
https://airflow.apache.org/
https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2026-82355

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