CVE-2023-40273: Session fixation in Apache Airflow web interface

[Ephraim Anierobi <ephraimanierobi () apache org>]

Severity: low

Affected versions:

- Apache Airflow before 2.7.0

Description:

The session fixation vulnerability allowed the authenticated user to continue accessing Airflow webserver even after 
the password of the user has been reset by the admin - up until the expiry of the session of the user. Other than 
manually cleaning the session database (for database session backend), or changing the secure_key and restarting the 
webserver, there were no mechanisms to force-logout the user (and all other users with that).

With this fix implemented, when using the database session backend, the existing sessions of the user are invalidated 
when the password of the user is reset. When using the securecookie session backend, the sessions are NOT invalidated 
and still require changing the secure key and restarting the webserver (and logging out all other users), but the user 
resetting the password is informed about it with a flash message warning displayed in the UI. Documentation is also 
updated explaining this behaviour.

Users of Apache Airflow are advised to upgrade to version 2.7.0 or newer to mitigate the risk associated with this 
vulnerability.

Credit:

Yusuf AYDIN (@h1_yusuf) (finder)
L3yx of Syclover Security Team. (finder)

References:

https://github.com/apache/airflow/pull/33347
https://airflow.apache.org/
https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2023-40273