The Apache Airflow Keycloak provider introduced a security flaw starting with Airflow 3.3 where the Keycloak access and refresh tokens are stored in separate cookies that are not authenticated or validated against the signed Airflow session token. This lack of binding allows an attacker who possesses a valid Airflow login and a foreign Keycloak token (access or refresh) obtained out of band to pair these tokens. As a result, Airflow authorizes requests using the foreign token's privileges, while audit logs and session caches reflect the attacker's own identity, enabling privilege escalation and session persistence across refreshes. Earlier Airflow versions embedded Keycloak tokens inside the signed session token, ensuring proper binding. The vulnerability affects apache-airflow-providers-keycloak versions before 0.10.0. The issue is resolved by upgrading to version 0.10.0 or later, which enforces binding of cookie-supplied tokens to the session identity.

An attacker with any valid Airflow login and a foreign Keycloak access or refresh token can escalate privileges by pairing their session with the foreign token, gaining unauthorized access rights. The mismatch between session identity and token privileges can persist across session refreshes, potentially allowing unauthorized actions under the guise of the attacker's account. This undermines authorization integrity and audit reliability in affected deployments.

Users should upgrade apache-airflow-providers-keycloak to version 0.10.0 or later, which binds the Keycloak tokens to the session identity, preventing token pairing attacks. No other mitigations are indicated. Patch status is confirmed by the vendor advisory recommending this upgrade.