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.
CVE-2020-11978
“▲” beside the score: it is higher than NVD's CVSS score.
Score elevated to 9.0 because this CVE is listed on the CISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog (added 2022-01-18), indicating real-world exploitation has been confirmed by US federal agencies. NVD baseline CVSS 8.8 retained for reference. The 9.0 is the floor for confirmed exploitation, not an impact rating: this CVE's impact severity (EG Severity) is CVSS 8.8 HIGH under GitHub Security Advisory CVSS. Confidence: HIGH.
Also known asEUVD-2020-0032 (ENISA EUVD) · GHSA-rvmq-4x66-q7j3 (GitHub Security Advisories)Source: ENISA EUVD
- Actively exploited in the wild (CISA-KEV) — the reason this is sooner than the SSVC decision on this page at low or medium mission impact
A fix is available — apply it.
- CVSS v3
- 8.8
- EG Score
- 9.0CRITICALhigh confidence
- EG Risk
- 80EG Risk 80/100
EG Risk is EchelonGraph's 0–100 priority score. It fuses impact severity (EG Severity, the CVSS base score, never the KEV-floored or EPSS-lifted EG Score) with real-world exploitation and automatability, under weights EchelonGraph set by hand, so you can rank equal-severity CVEs and fix the most dangerous first. Higher = act sooner.
How it’s computed (value × EchelonGraph’s weight)Severity88% × 45%Impact severity (EG Severity): CVSS 8.8 of 10. Never the KEV-floored or EPSS-lifted EG Score.Exploitation100% × 40%Fixed at 100% for a CISA KEV listing: EchelonGraph's rule.Automatability0% × 15%CISA's SSVC Automatable value: no (Vulnrichment).SSVC (CISA's decision table, applied by EchelonGraph): Track at low, Attend at medium and Act at high mission impact.Exploitation active (CISA Vulnrichment) · Automatable no (CISA Vulnrichment) · Technical impact total (CISA Vulnrichment). All three are CISA's SSVC values (Vulnrichment). EchelonGraph applied CISA's decision table to them; CISA publishes SSVC inputs and the table, not a decision for each CVE.Action: A fix is available. Apply it within your standard update timelines at low, sooner than that at medium and as soon as possible at high mission impact. - EPSS PROB
- 99%
- EPSS %ILE
- 99th
- KEV
- ⚠ Exploited
What the EG score is made of (scorer v4.0: the three questions the 0–10 score mixes, published apart · methodology)
The EG score (9.0): severity, escalated by confirmed exploitation. This CVE's 9.0 is the CISA KEV floor for confirmed exploitation, not an impact rating: its impact severity (EG Severity) is CVSS 8.8 HIGH.
- EG Severity
- 8.8 HIGHCVSS-B, impact only: no KEV listing, EPSS or EG-KEV tier raises it.GitHub Security Advisory CVSS
- EG Likelihood
- 99% within 30 daysSource: FIRST EPSS (model v2026.06.15, score date 2026-11-01). FIRST's exploitation probability, not an EchelonGraph model.
- Confirmed exploitation
- CISA KEV and EG-KEV Tier 1 (exploited in the wild)Reported apart from the likelihood: an observed fact, not a probability.
- EG Priority
- SSVC Attend at medium mission impactTrack at low, Attend at medium and Act at high mission impact.CISA BOD 26-04: 3 days & forensic triage if the affected system is publicly exposed; 14 days if it is not.Each input and its source, and whom BOD 26-04 binds: the SSVC and BOD 26-04 blocks below.
SSVC (CISA's decision table, applied by EchelonGraph)Track at low, Attend at medium and Act at high mission impact.
A fix is available. Apply it within your standard update timelines at low, sooner than that at medium and as soon as possible at high mission impact.
Exploitation active (CISA Vulnrichment) · Automatable no (CISA Vulnrichment) · Technical impact total (CISA Vulnrichment). All three are CISA's SSVC values (Vulnrichment). EchelonGraph applied CISA's decision table to them; CISA publishes SSVC inputs and the table, not a decision for each CVE. Mission impact is CISA's Mission & Well-being decision point, and only you can judge it. CISA's table makes it high when Mission Prevalence is Essential — the vulnerable component "directly provides capabilities that constitute at least one MEF for at least one entity" (MEF: mission essential function) — or when Public Well-Being Impact is Irreversible: "multiple fatalities are likely", the cyber-physical system "is likely lost or destroyed", "extreme or serious externalities" are imposed on other parties, or social systems such as elections or the financial grid "are destabilized and potentially collapse". CISA's decision table
BOD 26-04 (CISA's remediation timeline, Table 1)3 days & forensic triage if the affected system is publicly exposed; 14 days if it is not.
The score's inputs: In CISA KEV yes (CISA's KEV catalog) · Automatable no (CISA Vulnrichment) · Technical impact total (CISA Vulnrichment). Whether your system is publicly exposed is yours to answer. BOD 26-04 binds US Federal Civilian Executive Branch agencies; for anyone else it is CISA's published timeline, a reference rather than an obligation. The directive · how EchelonGraph applies it
CISA required action“Apply updates per vendor instructions.”
Quoted verbatim from CISA's Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog. CISA directs it at US federal civilian executive branch agencies under Binding Operational Directive (BOD) 26-04, which replaced BOD 22-01 on 10 June 2026; it is not EchelonGraph's advice. CISA's notes: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2020-11978
Published
July 17, 2020
Last Modified
October 23, 2025
Advisory Details (4)
Auto-updated Oct 26, 2026Known Exploited Vulnerabilities Catalog | CISA
Known Exploited Vulnerabilities Catalog | CISA. Listed in CISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog.
https://www.cisa.gov/known-exploited-vulnerabilities-catalog?field_cve=CVE-2020-11978Pony Mail
https://lists.apache.org/thread.html/r7255cf0be3566f23a768e2a04b40fb09e52fcd1872695428ba9afe91%40%3Cusers.airflow.apache.org%3EPatch Availability(1)
| Vendor / Ecosystem | Fix (by version range) / Patch | Released | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| pip | apache-airflow @ 1.10.11rc1 (fixes >= 0, < 1.10.11rc1) | — | ghsa |
Patches are aggregated from vendor advisories (Red Hat, Microsoft, Cisco, GitHub) and package ecosystems (OSV, GHSA). Multiple rows for the same upstream release have been deduplicated.
Affected Packages
(1 across 1 ecosystem)
PyPI(1)
| Package | Vulnerable range | Fix by version range | Dependents |
|---|---|---|---|
| apache-airflow | 1.8.1 ... 1.10.10 (44 versions) |
| — |
Weakness Classification(2)
MITRE Common Weakness Enumeration — the root-cause categories this CVE belongs to.
Data Freshness Timeline
(refreshed 11× in last 7d / 30× in last 30d)
Each row is a time one of our pipelines fetched, updated or re-scored this CVE. For example, "NVD update" means NVD published or revised its analysis for this CVE; "MITRE cvelistV5" means we ingested or refreshed it from the CNA feed. An arrow marks a change the record states ("CVSS v3 → 9.1"); EPSS and GHSA rows show the values recorded at that time, not what changed (EPSS values are rounded; hover one for the exact figures). Most recent first.
Showing the most recent 100 of 151 refreshes on record for this CVE.
A repeat, a row identical to one the same pipeline wrote less than 10 seconds earlier, is not a separate refresh and is not counted. None are among the latest 100 rows. The 51 oldest rows on record are not shown and were not checked, so the counts can still include repeats.
- 2026-11-02 00:59 UTCEG score recompute
- 2026-11-02 00:59 UTCGHSA enrichmentGHSA-rvmq-4x66-q7j3 · GitHub severity HIGH · GitHub CVSS 8.8
- 2026-11-01 08:38 UTCGHSA enrichmentGHSA-rvmq-4x66-q7j3 · GitHub severity HIGH · GitHub CVSS 8.8
- 2026-11-01 08:38 UTCEG score recompute
- 2026-11-01 01:16 UTCEG score recompute
- 2026-10-31 01:32 UTCEG score recompute
- 2026-10-30 01:48 UTCEG score recompute
- 2026-10-29 02:05 UTCEG score recompute
- 2026-10-28 02:22 UTCEG score recompute
- 2026-10-27 16:27 UTCEPSS rescoreEPSS 99% · 99th percentile
- 2026-10-27 02:39 UTCEG score recompute
- 2026-10-25 18:52 UTCEG score recompute
- 2026-10-25 16:28 UTCEPSS rescoreEPSS 99% · 99th percentile
- 2026-10-25 03:10 UTCEG score recompute
- 2026-10-24 03:27 UTCEG score recompute
- 2026-10-23 03:43 UTCEG score recompute
- 2026-10-22 03:58 UTCEG score recompute
- 2026-10-21 04:14 UTCEG score recompute
- 2026-10-20 04:31 UTCEG score recompute
- 2026-10-19 04:46 UTCEG score recompute
- 2026-10-18 05:02 UTCEG score recompute
- 2026-10-17 05:18 UTCEG score recompute
- 2026-10-16 05:33 UTCEG score recompute
- 2026-10-15 16:27 UTCEPSS rescoreEPSS 99% · 99th percentile
- 2026-10-15 05:48 UTCEG score recompute
Show 75 moreShow fewer
- 2026-10-14 06:01 UTCEG score recompute
- 2026-10-12 19:47 UTCEG score recompute
- 2026-10-11 22:42 UTCEG score recompute
- 2026-10-11 18:49 UTCEG score recompute
- 2026-10-11 14:55 UTCEG score recompute
- 2026-09-30 17:24 UTCEG score recompute
- 2026-09-30 14:59 UTCEPSS rescoreEPSS 99% · 99th percentile
- 2026-09-28 22:26 UTCEG score recompute
- 2026-09-27 21:51 UTCCISA KEV update
- 2026-09-25 19:35 UTCCISA KEV update
- 2026-09-25 14:55 UTCCISA KEV update
- 2026-09-24 19:31 UTCCISA KEV update
- 2026-09-22 19:36 UTCCISA KEV update
- 2026-09-22 18:09 UTCEG score recompute
- 2026-09-22 14:43 UTCEPSS rescoreEPSS 99% · 99th percentile
- 2026-09-21 22:40 UTCEG score recompute
- 2026-09-21 20:28 UTCEPSS rescoreEPSS 99% · 99th percentile
- 2026-09-21 19:09 UTCCISA KEV update
- 2026-09-18 19:20 UTCCISA KEV update
- 2026-09-18 14:15 UTCCISA KEV update
- 2026-09-16 14:10 UTCCISA KEV update
- 2026-09-14 19:24 UTCCISA KEV update
- 2026-09-11 18:49 UTCCISA KEV update
- 2026-09-10 19:28 UTCCISA KEV update
- 2026-09-10 09:58 UTCEG score recompute
- 2026-09-09 19:08 UTCCISA KEV update
- 2026-09-08 18:54 UTCCISA KEV update
- 2026-09-06 16:10 UTCEG score recompute
- 2026-09-06 13:44 UTCEPSS rescoreEPSS 99% · 99th percentile
- 2026-09-05 16:44 UTCEG score recompute
- 2026-09-05 15:24 UTCEPSS rescoreEPSS 99% · 99th percentile
- 2026-09-04 17:38 UTCCISA KEV update
- 2026-09-02 17:33 UTCCISA KEV update
- 2026-08-31 14:19 UTCCISA KEV update
- 2026-08-30 20:08 UTCEG score recompute
- 2026-08-30 19:14 UTCEPSS rescoreEPSS 99% · 99th percentile
- 2026-08-30 04:32 UTCEG score recompute
- 2026-08-30 01:18 UTCEPSS rescoreEPSS 99% · 99th percentile
- 2026-08-29 01:07 UTCEG score recompute
- 2026-08-28 21:37 UTCEPSS rescoreEPSS 99% · 99th percentile
- 2026-08-27 17:22 UTCCISA KEV update
- 2026-08-26 17:41 UTCCISA KEV update
- 2026-08-24 18:52 UTCCISA KEV update
- 2026-08-24 15:37 UTCEG score recompute
- 2026-08-24 11:43 UTCEG score recompute
- 2026-08-21 16:49 UTCCISA KEV update
- 2026-08-20 17:06 UTCCISA KEV update
- 2026-08-19 18:49 UTCEG score recompute
- 2026-08-19 17:33 UTCCISA KEV update
- 2026-08-19 17:00 UTCEPSS rescoreEPSS 99% · 99th percentile
- 2026-08-18 16:58 UTCCISA KEV update
- 2026-08-18 15:32 UTCEG score recompute
- 2026-08-18 13:44 UTCEPSS rescoreEPSS 99% · 99th percentile
- 2026-08-17 13:56 UTCCISA KEV update
- 2026-08-16 05:06 UTCEG score recompute
- 2026-08-16 02:11 UTCEPSS rescoreEPSS 99% · 99th percentile
- 2026-08-12 15:32 UTCEG score recompute
- 2026-08-12 13:47 UTCEPSS rescoreEPSS 99% · 99th percentile
- 2026-08-11 19:32 UTCCISA KEV update
- 2026-08-11 16:10 UTCEG score recompute
- 2026-08-07 17:09 UTCCISA KEV update
- 2026-08-05 17:25 UTCCISA KEV update
- 2026-08-04 17:02 UTCCISA KEV update
- 2026-08-03 19:22 UTCCISA KEV update
- 2026-08-01 06:51 UTCEG score recompute
- 2026-08-01 04:12 UTCEPSS rescoreEPSS 99% · 99th percentile
- 2026-07-30 11:47 UTCEG score recompute
- 2026-07-29 19:27 UTCCISA KEV update
- 2026-07-27 19:24 UTCCISA KEV update
- 2026-07-27 17:17 UTCCISA KEV update
- 2026-07-26 14:04 UTCEG score recompute
- 2026-07-23 01:48 UTCEG score recompute
- 2026-07-22 23:51 UTCEG score recompute
- 2026-07-22 22:33 UTCEG score recompute
- 2026-07-22 19:40 UTCCISA KEV update
Publicly available exploits
(4 references)Public exploit code is referenced for this CVE (1 Metasploit module, 1 Exploit-DB entry, 1 GitHub PoC), as is 1 Nuclei detection template. A detection template checks whether a system is affected; it is not necessarily exploit code. Defenders should treat patch urgency accordingly.
- Metasploitexploit/linux/http/apache_airflow_dag_rce✓ verifiedPublished Sep 18, 2023
Apache Airflow 1.10.10 - Example DAG Remote Code Execution
Open source ↗ - Nucleihttp/cves/2020/CVE-2020-11978.yamlPublished Jun 3, 2021
Apache Airflow <=1.10.10 - Remote Code Execution
Open source ↗ - Exploit-DBEDB-49927Published Jun 2, 2021
Apache Airflow 1.10.10 - 'Example Dag' Remote Code Execution
Open source ↗ - GitHub PoCpberba/CVE-2020-11978Published May 22, 2021
PoC of how to exploit a RCE vulnerability of the example DAGs in Apache Airflow <1.10.11
Open source ↗
Related CVEs(same product + same CWE)
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Same CWE
10 shownCWE-78 · CWE-77
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Frequently asked(6)
What is CVE-2020-11978?
When was the CVE record for CVE-2020-11978 published?
Is CVE-2020-11978 actively exploited?
What is the CVSS score of CVE-2020-11978?
Which products are affected by CVE-2020-11978?
How do I remediate CVE-2020-11978?
Dependency Blast Radius
See which npm, PyPI, Go, and Maven packages are affected by CVE-2020-11978
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