Apache Airflow 3 introduced a change to the handling of sensitive information in Connections. The intent was to restrict access to sensitive connection fields to Connection Editing Users, effectively applying a write-only model for sensitive values.
In Airflow 3.0.3, this model was unintentionally violated: sensitive connection information could be viewed by users with READ permissions through both the API and the UI. This behavior also bypassed the AIRFLOW__CORE__HIDE_SENSITIVE_VAR_CONN_FIELDS configuration option.
This issue does not affect Airflow 2.x, where exposing sensitive information to connection editors was the intended and documented behavior.
Users of Airflow 3.0.3 are advised to upgrade Airflow to >=3.0.4.
The product’s intended functionality exposes information to certain actors in accordance with the developer’s security policy, but this information is regarded as sensitive according to the intended security policies of other stakeholders such as the product’s administrator, users, or others whose information is being processed.
| Name | Vendor | Start Version | End Version |
|---|---|---|---|
| Airflow | Apache | 3.0.3 (including) | 3.0.3 (including) |
When handling information, the developer must consider whether the information is regarded as sensitive by different stakeholders, such as users or administrators. Each stakeholder effectively has its own intended security policy that the product is expected to uphold. When a developer does not treat that information as sensitive, this can introduce a vulnerability that violates the expectations of the product’s users.