The Akeyless secrets backend for Apache Airflow contains a flaw that allows a team‑scoped guard to be bypassed through a user‑controlled variable key. By inserting a path separator into a Variable key, a DAG author can trick the lookup logic into concatenating an unvalidated suffix after a failed team‑scoped lookup, causing the backend to resolve a secret that belongs to another team. This results in a privilege escalation of secret access: a developer or malicious author gains read access to confidential data stored under a different team’s namespace, exposing sensitive credentials to an unintended audience. The weakness is classified as CWE‑639, an authorization bypass that occurs when a user‑controlled key is used for access control.

Apache Airflow Akeyless provider environments that deploy the akeyless secrets backend in a multi‑team configuration are affected. Users of the apache‑airflow‑providers‑akeyless package before version 0.3.1 are vulnerable. Single‑team deployments are not impacted because there is no inter‑team boundary to cross.

The attack requires the ability to submit or modify a DAG with a crafted Variable key and to execute the Execution API Variables route, which are normally available to DAG authors. Because the flaw can be triggered from ordinary DAG code, an attacker who can author or influence DAGs can obtain secrets from other teams without needing higher system privileges. The CVSS score is 6.5, indicating a high impact, and the EPSS score is < 1%, reflecting a very low but nonzero probability of exploitation. The vulnerability is not listed in the CISA KEV catalog. As such, while the technical risk is moderate due to limited exploitability, the impact on multi‑team deployments warrants timely mitigation.