Predictive Vulnerability Intelligence.

Product

  • Product
  • Pricing
  • Documentation

Company

  • About
  • Partnerships
  • Blog
  • Support

Legal

  • Terms
  • Privacy
  • Data Licensing

© 2026 FAUCET Technologies LLC. All rights reserved.

CVE-2021-38540

82
FAUCET Score

CVE-2021-38540 is a critical vulnerability affecting Apache Airflow versions 2.0.0 through 2.1.2, where an unauthenticated variable import endpoint allowed unauthorized users to manipulate Airflow variables. This flaw carries a CVSS score of 9.8, indicating a severe risk of denial of service, information disclosure, or remote code execution due to its network-based attack vector and low attack complexity. While not listed on CISA's KEV catalog, exploit intelligence shows available Nuclei templates, suggesting potential for exploitation, though there is minimal public discussion or media coverage.

Impacted Technologies

VendorProductVersion(s)CPE
>= 2.0.0, < 2.1.3CPE matchmatch criteria
cpe:2.3:a:apache:airflow:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*

CVSS Data

CVSS version used by this source: 3.1

9.8CRITICAL

CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

Attack Vector
NETWORK
Attack Complexity
LOW
Privileges Required
NONE
User Interaction
NONE
Scope
UNCHANGED
Confidentiality Impact
HIGH
Integrity Impact
HIGH
Availability Impact
HIGH
Exploitability Score
3.9
Impact Score
5.9
CvssVersion
3.1

Exploit Intelligence

EPSS Score
80.94%
Probability of exploitation in next 30 days
EPSS Percentile
99.6%
Percentile rank of EPSS score among Peer Group
As of 2026-07-27
Model: v2026.06.15
Nuclei: CVE-2021-38540 · Nov 28, 2021
This CVE's current EPSS score of 0.8094 is in the 98th percentile among its peer group of 36,862 CVEs.

Social Chatter

The average CVE in this peer group has 0.0 Twitter, 0.1 Reddit, 0.3 Bluesky, 0.3 Mastodon, and 2.4 GitHub mentions.

Media Mentions

No media coverage found for this CVE.

The average CVE in this peer group has 0.3 InfoSec Media, 0.0 Vendor Blog, and 0.0 Security Researcher mentions.

Remediation

Patch Available

Vendor Patches (1)

pippatch availablevia ghsa
Product: apache-airflowFixed in: 2.1.3

Vendor Advisories (1)

pipGHSA-h88f-r7cw-8fv3critical

Missing Authentication for Critical Function in Apache Airflow

May 24, 2022

References

lists.apache.org / thread.html/rac2ed9118f64733e47b4f1e82ddc8c8020774698f13328ca742b03a2%40%3Cannounce.apache.org%3E
lists.apache.org / thread.html/rb34c3dd1a815456355217eef34060789f771b6f77c3a3dec77de2064%40%3Cusers.airflow.apache.org%3E
Mailing ListVendor Advisory