Vulnerability from bitnami_vulndb
Apache Airflow's EmailOperator and the underlying airflow.utils.email helpers established SMTP STARTTLS connections without verifying the remote certificate when the deployment used [email] smtp_starttls=True without [email] smtp_ssl. An attacker positioned between the worker and the configured SMTP server (network MITM — typical hostile-network attack-surface for environments where the SMTP relay sits outside the worker's trust boundary) could present a self-signed certificate, have the worker complete the STARTTLS handshake silently, and capture the SMTP AUTH credentials and message contents the worker forwarded.
This CVE covers the core apache-airflow side of the same root cause already covered for the SMTP provider by CVE-2026-41016 (published 2026-04-27, covering apache-airflow-providers-smtp). Users who already applied the SMTP-provider fix from CVE-2026-41016 should additionally upgrade apache-airflow to 3.2.2 or later to cover the core-side path through airflow.utils.email. Affects deployments configured with smtp_starttls=True and smtp_ssl=False where the SMTP relay is reachable across a less-trusted network segment than the worker.
Users are advised to upgrade to apache-airflow 3.2.2 or later.
{
"affected": [
{
"package": {
"ecosystem": "Bitnami",
"name": "airflow",
"purl": "pkg:bitnami/airflow"
},
"ranges": [
{
"events": [
{
"introduced": "2.0.0"
},
{
"fixed": "3.2.2"
}
],
"type": "SEMVER"
}
],
"severity": [
{
"score": "CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N",
"type": "CVSS_V3"
}
]
}
],
"aliases": [
"CVE-2026-49267"
],
"database_specific": {
"cpes": [
"cpe:2.3:a:apache:airflow:*:*:*:*:*:python:*:*"
],
"severity": "Medium"
},
"details": "Apache Airflow\u0027s EmailOperator and the underlying `airflow.utils.email` helpers established SMTP STARTTLS connections without verifying the remote certificate when the deployment used `[email] smtp_starttls=True` without `[email] smtp_ssl`. An attacker positioned between the worker and the configured SMTP server (network MITM \u2014 typical hostile-network attack-surface for environments where the SMTP relay sits outside the worker\u0027s trust boundary) could present a self-signed certificate, have the worker complete the STARTTLS handshake silently, and capture the SMTP AUTH credentials and message contents the worker forwarded.\n\nThis CVE covers the **core apache-airflow side** of the same root cause already covered for the SMTP provider by `CVE-2026-41016` (published 2026-04-27, covering `apache-airflow-providers-smtp`). Users who already applied the SMTP-provider fix from CVE-2026-41016 should additionally upgrade `apache-airflow` to 3.2.2 or later to cover the core-side path through `airflow.utils.email`. Affects deployments configured with `smtp_starttls=True` and `smtp_ssl=False` where the SMTP relay is reachable across a less-trusted network segment than the worker.\n\nUsers are advised to upgrade to `apache-airflow` 3.2.2 or later.",
"id": "BIT-airflow-2026-49267",
"modified": "2026-06-05T06:08:58.631Z",
"published": "2026-06-05T05:40:51.158Z",
"references": [
{
"type": "WEB",
"url": "https://github.com/apache/airflow/pull/65346"
},
{
"type": "WEB",
"url": "https://lists.apache.org/thread/6v2ds757000msmjmovnnqryqzks83ps0"
},
{
"type": "WEB",
"url": "https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-49267"
}
],
"schema_version": "1.6.2",
"summary": "Apache Airflow: No certificate validation on SMTP STARTTLS connections"
}
Sightings
| Author | Source | Type | Date | Other |
|---|
Nomenclature
- Seen: The vulnerability was mentioned, discussed, or observed by the user.
- Confirmed: The vulnerability has been validated from an analyst's perspective.
- Published Proof of Concept: A public proof of concept is available for this vulnerability.
- Exploited: The vulnerability was observed as exploited by the user who reported the sighting.
- Patched: The vulnerability was observed as successfully patched by the user who reported the sighting.
- Not exploited: The vulnerability was not observed as exploited by the user who reported the sighting.
- Not confirmed: The user expressed doubt about the validity of the vulnerability.
- Not patched: The vulnerability was not observed as successfully patched by the user who reported the sighting.