CVE-2020-11978

CRITICALNVD 8.89.0
EchelonGraph scoreHIGH confidence

“▲” 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.

Triggered by: CISA KEV (actively exploited)
Sources: CISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog, EPSS, GitHub Security Advisory, NVD CVSS v3
Trending — 3 sources updated this weekExploited in the wild

Also known asEUVD-2020-0032 (ENISA EUVD) · GHSA-rvmq-4x66-q7j3 (GitHub Security Advisories)Source: ENISA EUVD

9.0EG
EchelonGraph verdictPatch nowTreat as an emergency — this is being exploited.
  • 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
CISA-KEV: ExploitedEPSS PROB: 99%CVSS: 8.8Exploit: Metasploit · other public PoCExposed services: Not assessed

A fix is available — apply it.

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.

CVSS v3
8.8
EG Score
9.0CRITICALhigh confidence
EG Risk
80
EG 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, 2026
⚠️ Actively exploited (CISA KEV, CISA Vulnrichment). Patch available. Sources: cisa.

Patch Availability(1)

Vendor / EcosystemFix (by version range) / PatchReleasedSource
pipapache-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)
PackageVulnerable rangeFix by version rangeDependents
apache-airflow1.8.1 ... 1.10.10 (44 versions)
  • every version up to 1.10.11rc1: fixed in 1.10.11rc1
—

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.

  1. 2026-11-02 00:59 UTCEG score recompute
  2. 2026-11-02 00:59 UTCGHSA enrichmentGHSA-rvmq-4x66-q7j3 · GitHub severity HIGH · GitHub CVSS 8.8
  3. 2026-11-01 08:38 UTCGHSA enrichmentGHSA-rvmq-4x66-q7j3 · GitHub severity HIGH · GitHub CVSS 8.8
  4. 2026-11-01 08:38 UTCEG score recompute
  5. 2026-11-01 01:16 UTCEG score recompute
  6. 2026-10-31 01:32 UTCEG score recompute
  7. 2026-10-30 01:48 UTCEG score recompute
  8. 2026-10-29 02:05 UTCEG score recompute
  9. 2026-10-28 02:22 UTCEG score recompute
  10. 2026-10-27 16:27 UTCEPSS rescoreEPSS 99% · 99th percentile
  11. 2026-10-27 02:39 UTCEG score recompute
  12. 2026-10-25 18:52 UTCEG score recompute
  13. 2026-10-25 16:28 UTCEPSS rescoreEPSS 99% · 99th percentile
  14. 2026-10-25 03:10 UTCEG score recompute
  15. 2026-10-24 03:27 UTCEG score recompute
  16. 2026-10-23 03:43 UTCEG score recompute
  17. 2026-10-22 03:58 UTCEG score recompute
  18. 2026-10-21 04:14 UTCEG score recompute
  19. 2026-10-20 04:31 UTCEG score recompute
  20. 2026-10-19 04:46 UTCEG score recompute
  21. 2026-10-18 05:02 UTCEG score recompute
  22. 2026-10-17 05:18 UTCEG score recompute
  23. 2026-10-16 05:33 UTCEG score recompute
  24. 2026-10-15 16:27 UTCEPSS rescoreEPSS 99% · 99th percentile
  25. 2026-10-15 05:48 UTCEG score recompute
Show 75 more
  1. 2026-10-14 06:01 UTCEG score recompute
  2. 2026-10-12 19:47 UTCEG score recompute
  3. 2026-10-11 22:42 UTCEG score recompute
  4. 2026-10-11 18:49 UTCEG score recompute
  5. 2026-10-11 14:55 UTCEG score recompute
  6. 2026-09-30 17:24 UTCEG score recompute
  7. 2026-09-30 14:59 UTCEPSS rescoreEPSS 99% · 99th percentile
  8. 2026-09-28 22:26 UTCEG score recompute
  9. 2026-09-27 21:51 UTCCISA KEV update
  10. 2026-09-25 19:35 UTCCISA KEV update
  11. 2026-09-25 14:55 UTCCISA KEV update
  12. 2026-09-24 19:31 UTCCISA KEV update
  13. 2026-09-22 19:36 UTCCISA KEV update
  14. 2026-09-22 18:09 UTCEG score recompute
  15. 2026-09-22 14:43 UTCEPSS rescoreEPSS 99% · 99th percentile
  16. 2026-09-21 22:40 UTCEG score recompute
  17. 2026-09-21 20:28 UTCEPSS rescoreEPSS 99% · 99th percentile
  18. 2026-09-21 19:09 UTCCISA KEV update
  19. 2026-09-18 19:20 UTCCISA KEV update
  20. 2026-09-18 14:15 UTCCISA KEV update
  21. 2026-09-16 14:10 UTCCISA KEV update
  22. 2026-09-14 19:24 UTCCISA KEV update
  23. 2026-09-11 18:49 UTCCISA KEV update
  24. 2026-09-10 19:28 UTCCISA KEV update
  25. 2026-09-10 09:58 UTCEG score recompute
  26. 2026-09-09 19:08 UTCCISA KEV update
  27. 2026-09-08 18:54 UTCCISA KEV update
  28. 2026-09-06 16:10 UTCEG score recompute
  29. 2026-09-06 13:44 UTCEPSS rescoreEPSS 99% · 99th percentile
  30. 2026-09-05 16:44 UTCEG score recompute
  31. 2026-09-05 15:24 UTCEPSS rescoreEPSS 99% · 99th percentile
  32. 2026-09-04 17:38 UTCCISA KEV update
  33. 2026-09-02 17:33 UTCCISA KEV update
  34. 2026-08-31 14:19 UTCCISA KEV update
  35. 2026-08-30 20:08 UTCEG score recompute
  36. 2026-08-30 19:14 UTCEPSS rescoreEPSS 99% · 99th percentile
  37. 2026-08-30 04:32 UTCEG score recompute
  38. 2026-08-30 01:18 UTCEPSS rescoreEPSS 99% · 99th percentile
  39. 2026-08-29 01:07 UTCEG score recompute
  40. 2026-08-28 21:37 UTCEPSS rescoreEPSS 99% · 99th percentile
  41. 2026-08-27 17:22 UTCCISA KEV update
  42. 2026-08-26 17:41 UTCCISA KEV update
  43. 2026-08-24 18:52 UTCCISA KEV update
  44. 2026-08-24 15:37 UTCEG score recompute
  45. 2026-08-24 11:43 UTCEG score recompute
  46. 2026-08-21 16:49 UTCCISA KEV update
  47. 2026-08-20 17:06 UTCCISA KEV update
  48. 2026-08-19 18:49 UTCEG score recompute
  49. 2026-08-19 17:33 UTCCISA KEV update
  50. 2026-08-19 17:00 UTCEPSS rescoreEPSS 99% · 99th percentile
  51. 2026-08-18 16:58 UTCCISA KEV update
  52. 2026-08-18 15:32 UTCEG score recompute
  53. 2026-08-18 13:44 UTCEPSS rescoreEPSS 99% · 99th percentile
  54. 2026-08-17 13:56 UTCCISA KEV update
  55. 2026-08-16 05:06 UTCEG score recompute
  56. 2026-08-16 02:11 UTCEPSS rescoreEPSS 99% · 99th percentile
  57. 2026-08-12 15:32 UTCEG score recompute
  58. 2026-08-12 13:47 UTCEPSS rescoreEPSS 99% · 99th percentile
  59. 2026-08-11 19:32 UTCCISA KEV update
  60. 2026-08-11 16:10 UTCEG score recompute
  61. 2026-08-07 17:09 UTCCISA KEV update
  62. 2026-08-05 17:25 UTCCISA KEV update
  63. 2026-08-04 17:02 UTCCISA KEV update
  64. 2026-08-03 19:22 UTCCISA KEV update
  65. 2026-08-01 06:51 UTCEG score recompute
  66. 2026-08-01 04:12 UTCEPSS rescoreEPSS 99% · 99th percentile
  67. 2026-07-30 11:47 UTCEG score recompute
  68. 2026-07-29 19:27 UTCCISA KEV update
  69. 2026-07-27 19:24 UTCCISA KEV update
  70. 2026-07-27 17:17 UTCCISA KEV update
  71. 2026-07-26 14:04 UTCEG score recompute
  72. 2026-07-23 01:48 UTCEG score recompute
  73. 2026-07-22 23:51 UTCEG score recompute
  74. 2026-07-22 22:33 UTCEG score recompute
  75. 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✓ verified
    Published Sep 18, 2023

    Apache Airflow 1.10.10 - Example DAG Remote Code Execution

    Open source ↗
  • Nucleihttp/cves/2020/CVE-2020-11978.yaml
    Published Jun 3, 2021

    Apache Airflow <=1.10.10 - Remote Code Execution

    Open source ↗
  • Exploit-DBEDB-49927
    Published Jun 2, 2021

    Apache Airflow 1.10.10 - 'Example Dag' Remote Code Execution

    Open source ↗
  • GitHub PoCpberba/CVE-2020-11978
    Published May 22, 2021

    PoC of how to exploit a RCE vulnerability of the example DAGs in Apache Airflow <1.10.11

    Open source ↗

Frequently asked(6)

What is CVE-2020-11978?
CVE-2020-11978 is a critical-severity vulnerability; its CVE record was published on July 17, 2020. 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…
When was the CVE record for CVE-2020-11978 published?
The CVE record for CVE-2020-11978 was published on July 17, 2020. That is the record's publication date; the vulnerability itself may have been made public earlier. EchelonGraph's copy of the record carries a last-modified date of October 23, 2025; the record at its source may have been updated since.
Is CVE-2020-11978 actively exploited?
Yes. CISA added CVE-2020-11978 to the Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog on January 18, 2022, affecting Apache Airflow. KEV listing indicates confirmed exploitation in the wild; this CVE warrants immediate attention. A fix is available. Apply it.
What is the CVSS score of CVE-2020-11978?
CVE-2020-11978 has a CVSS v3 base score of 8.8 (NVD). EchelonGraph synthesises NVD + CISA KEV + FIRST EPSS + GHSA into a combined EG score of 9.0 (CRITICAL).
Which products are affected by CVE-2020-11978?
CVE-2020-11978 affects Apache Airflow. The affected packages EchelonGraph has on record, with version ranges, are listed in the Affected Packages section of this page.
How do I remediate CVE-2020-11978?
A fix for CVE-2020-11978 is available: update to the fixed version the vendor names in its advisory.

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