CVE-2026-48892: Apache Airflow: Config API leaks per-key secrets backend kwargs - masker bypass on synthetic options

[Rahul Vats <rahulvats () apache org>]

Severity: moderate 

Affected versions:

- Apache Airflow (apache-airflow) before 3.3.0

Description:

The Config API in Apache Airflow surfaced per-key secrets-backend overrides (environment variables like 
`AIRFLOW__SECRETS__BACKEND_KWARG__SECRET_ID` and `AIRFLOW__WORKERS__SECRETS_BACKEND_KWARG__SECRET_ID`) as synthetic 
config options whose option names were not in `sensitive_config_values`, so the masker did not redact them. An 
authenticated UI/API user with Config read permission could retrieve plaintext secrets-backend credentials (Vault 
`role_id` / `secret_id`, etc.) from the Config API output. Affects deployments that configure secrets backends via 
per-key environment overrides. Users are advised to upgrade to `apache-airflow` 3.3.0 or later.

Credit:

Omkhar Arasaratnam (@omkhar) (finder)
Jarek Potiuk (remediation developer)

References:

https://github.com/apache/airflow/pull/67622
https://airflow.apache.org/
https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2026-48892