Security readout for executives and security teams
Plain-English summary
This vulnerability lets an already authenticated, low-privileged local user potentially gain elevated control on systems running affected Microsoft Open Management Infrastructure components. Successful exploitation could expose or alter sensitive information and disrupt services. Because CISA lists it as known exploited, organizations should treat confirmed affected installations as urgent.
Executive priority
Prioritize remediation promptly because exploitation is documented and successful attacks can produce complete confidentiality, integrity, and availability impact. Focus first on confirmed affected installations and systems with valuable data or operational roles. Track inventory, update completion, and verification as a high-priority vulnerability-management action.
Technical view
CVE-2021-38649 is a local elevation-of-privilege vulnerability with CVSS 3.1 score 7.0. Exploitation requires low privileges and high attack complexity, but no user interaction. A successful attack can have high confidentiality, integrity, and availability impact. The supplied sources do not describe the underlying flaw or exploitation method.
Likely exposure
Exposure may exist where the listed versions of Open Management Infrastructure or associated Microsoft management, monitoring, diagnostics, security, automation, and SCOM products are installed. The bundle does not establish whether every deployment is vulnerable by default, so organizations must verify installed components and versions against Microsoft’s advisory.
Exploitation context
CISA’s Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog supports that this CVE has been exploited in the wild. The supplied evidence does not identify threat actors, affected organizations, exploitation scale, or current campaign activity. The local attack vector indicates an attacker generally needs prior low-privileged access before attempting elevation.
Researcher notes
The vector is CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H, indicating local, high-complexity exploitation by a low-privileged user without interaction. Scope remains unchanged. The bundle names affected product versions but provides no technical root cause, fixed-version matrix, indicators, or exploitation telemetry; consult Microsoft and CISA for authoritative details.
Mitigation direction
- Follow Microsoft’s CVE advisory and apply the applicable vendor updates.
- Prioritize systems where affected management or monitoring components are confirmed.
- Restrict local access and privileged pathways until remediation is verified.
- Check Microsoft guidance for product-specific mitigations if immediate updating is unavailable.
Validation and detection
- Inventory the listed Microsoft products and Open Management Infrastructure installations.
- Compare installed versions with Microsoft’s current CVE advisory.
- Confirm applicable updates are installed successfully on each affected system.
- Review security telemetry for suspicious privilege elevation on previously vulnerable systems.
Public sources used
Generated from the cited source records. This long-tail analysis has not been individually reviewed by a named human.
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
Use these exact CWE pages and searches to review the Glexia ATT&CK library from this CVE's weakness and description context.
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.
Open ATT&CK lookupContainer behavior lookup
The affected technology mentions containers, so container-specific ATT&CK technique review may help. This is a Glexia inferred lookup path, not an official MITRE, ATT&CK, or CVE Program mapping.
Open ATT&CK lookupCVE-2021-38649 mapping review
Open the CVE-to-ATT&CK bridge for reviewed, inferred, or future official mappings tied to this CVE.
Open ATT&CK lookup- Severity
- High
- CVSS
- 7 (3.1)
- Known Exploited
- Yes
- Published
Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H/E:U/RL:O/RC:C
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.
CISA KEV status
SSVC decision data
CVSS vector scores
1 official scoreWe collect every scored CVSS vector available in the official CNA and ADP containers. When more than one version is present, the table keeps the source vectors side by side instead of collapsing them into the highest score.
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H/E:U/RL:O/RC:C15.9microsoftVulnerability scoring details
Base CVSS 3.1 score
7HighVector: CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H/E:U/RL:O/RC:C
Vulnerability timeline
Timeline events are normalized from CVE metadata, CNA source timelines, ADP timelines, and KEV metadata when present.
- CVE reservedCVE Program
The CVE ID was reserved by the assigning CNA.
- CVE publishedCVE Program
The CVE record was published.
- Added to KEVCISA-ADP
CISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities metadata lists this CVE as known exploited.
- ADP timelineCISA-ADP
CVE-2021-38649 added to CISA KEV
- CVE updatedCVE Program
The CVE record metadata indicates this as the latest update time.
ADP provider summaries
- 2021-11-03T00:00:00.000Z: CVE-2021-38649 added to CISA KEV
Source materials
- CVE List V5 sourceCVE List V5
- Open Management Infrastructure Elevation of Privilege VulnerabilityCVE reference, microsoft · vendor-advisory, patch
- https://portal.msrc.microsoft.com/en-US/security-guidance/advisory/CVE-2021-38649CVE reference, CVE · x_refsource_MISC, x_transferred
- https://www.cisa.gov/known-exploited-vulnerabilities-catalog?field_cve=CVE-2021-38649CVE reference, CISA-ADP · government-resource
Products and packages named in the record
CWE details
CWE links open Glexia weakness intelligence pages with official CWE context, developer remediation guidance, and related CVE mappings.