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CVE Record

CVE-2021-38289: An issue has been discovered in Novastar-VNNOX-iCare Novaicare 7.16.0 that gives attacker privilege escalat...

An issue has been discovered in Novastar-VNNOX-iCare Novaicare 7.16.0 that gives attacker privilege escalation and allows attackers to view corporate information and SMTP server details, delete users, view roles, and other unspecified impacts. NOTE: As of April 2026, the vendor has officially decommissioned the affected legacy endpoints and associated services. The vulnerability is mitigated as the functional logic is no longer operational and the URLs have been removed from production.

UnknownCVSS not scoredNot KEV-listedUpdated
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Glexia's TakeAutomated analysisunknown

Security readout for executives and security teams

Plain-English summary

CVE-2021-38289 concerns legacy Novastar VNNOX iCare Novaicare 7.16.0 behavior that could let an attacker gain elevated access, view corporate and SMTP details, delete users, and view roles. The vendor says the affected legacy endpoints and services were decommissioned by April 2026, so current risk depends on whether any old deployments or copied endpoints remain reachable.

Executive priority

Set priority to verification rather than emergency response unless legacy exposure is found. If any affected endpoint remains reachable, escalate because the described impacts include privilege escalation, sensitive configuration exposure, and user deletion.

Technical view

The public record describes a privilege escalation issue in Novaicare 7.16.0 with administrative data exposure and user-management impact. No CVSS, CWE, precise affected CPEs, or supported patch details are provided. The vendor advisory states the vulnerable logic is no longer operational because legacy URLs and associated services were removed from production.

Likely exposure

Likely limited to organizations that used Novastar VNNOX iCare Novaicare 7.16.0 or retained legacy integrations, mirrors, cached endpoints, or internal copies. The source bundle does not identify broader affected products or supported versions.

Exploitation context

A public researcher reference exists, but the source bundle does not show CISA KEV listing or confirmed active exploitation. Treat exploit status as unconfirmed, while recognizing that the described impact would be significant if reachable.

Researcher notes

Evidence is incomplete: no CVSS vector, CWE, CPE, detailed affected matrix, or remediation package is provided. The strongest mitigation evidence is the vendor statement that affected legacy endpoints and services were removed from production by April 2026.

Mitigation direction

  • Confirm the vendor-decommissioned endpoints are not reachable from your networks.
  • Remove or retire any legacy Novaicare 7.16.0 deployments or integrations.
  • Check vendor advisory guidance before assuming a patch-based fix exists.
  • Restrict access to any remaining legacy management interfaces during investigation.

Validation and detection

  • Inventory Novastar VNNOX iCare and Novaicare usage across cloud, on-prem, and third parties.
  • Verify no production, staging, or internal URLs map to the retired legacy endpoints.
  • Review access logs for unexpected use of legacy Novaicare paths or account-management functions.
  • Check whether SMTP configuration details were exposed in historical monitoring or logs.
Prepared
Confidence
medium
Sources
5

Public sources used

Generated from the cited source records. This long-tail analysis has not been individually reviewed by a named human.

Potential ATT&CK relevance

Conservative CVE-to-ATT&CK context

These mappings and lookup hints may be relevant to the vulnerability behavior, CWE, affected product, or exposure path. Glexia-inferred context is not an official MITRE, ATT&CK, CWE, or CVE Program mapping.

ATT&CK lookup starting points

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description · low confidence lookup

Privilege behavior lookup

The CVE wording references privilege impact, so privilege escalation and authorization behavior review may help. This is a Glexia inferred lookup path, not an official MITRE, ATT&CK, or CVE Program mapping.

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cve · low confidence lookup

CVE-2021-38289 mapping review

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Vulnerability profileCVE Program record
Severity
Unknown
CVSS
Not scored
Known Exploited
No
Published
Official CVE source material

CNA and ADP enrichment extracted from CVE v5

These fields come from the CVE record and ADP containers, not from Glexia's Take. They preserve time-varying source decisions such as CISA SSVC, KEV status, CVSS metrics, and provider references.

0CVSS vectors
0Timeline events
0ADP providers
4Source links

CVSS and timeline data

No CVSS vectors or timeline events were available in the normalized CVE source material.

Source materials

Affected products

Products and packages named in the record

VendorProductVersion / packageStatus
n/an/an/aListed
Weakness

CWE details

No CWE listed

CWE links open Glexia weakness intelligence pages with official CWE context, developer remediation guidance, and related CVE mappings.