How severe is CVE-2021-38645?

CVE-2021-38645 has a CVSS 3.1 base score of 7.8 (HIGH). EPSS estimates a 2.7% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days. It is listed in the CISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog.

CVE-2021-38645: Open Management Infrastructure Elevation of Privilege

CISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities

Microsoft Open Management Infrastructure (OMI) Privilege Escalation Vulnerability is confirmed as actively exploited and is listed in the CISA KEV catalog.

Added to KEV

2021-11-03

Remediation due

2021-11-17

Required action
Apply updates per vendor instructions.

CISA notes
https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2021-38645

Description

Open Management Infrastructure Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability

Severity

CVSS 3.1 · CNA7.8 HIGH

CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H/E:U/RL:O/RC:C

SSVC · CISA-ADP

Exploitationactive

Automatableno

Technical impacttotal

Exploitation Context

as of October 14, 2026

All KEV statistics→

CISA added CVE-2021-38645 to the KEV catalog 49 days after its CVE record was published.
It is one of 391 Microsoft entries in the CISA KEV catalog, and one of 83 added in 2021.
Its current EPSS score (2.7%) is higher than that of 11% of CISA KEV entries.

Affected Products

Vendor	Product	Affected versions
Microsoft	Microsoft Azure Automation State Configuration, DSC Extension	2.0.0 to <DSC Agent versions: 2.71.1.25, 2.70.0.30, 3.0.0.3
Microsoft	Microsoft Azure Automation Update Management	1.0.0 to <OMS Agent for Linux GA v1.13.40-0
Microsoft	Microsoft Azure Diagnostics (LAD)	3.0.0 to <LAD v4.0.13 and LAD v3.0.135
Microsoft	Microsoft Azure Security Center	1.0.0 to <OMS Agent for Linux GA v1.13.40-0
Microsoft	Microsoft Azure Sentinel	1.0.0 to <OMS Agent for Linux GA v1.13.40-0
Microsoft	Microsoft Azure Stack Hub	1.0.0 to <Monitor, Update and Config Mgmnt 1.14.01
Microsoft	Microsoft Container Monitoring Solution	1.0.0 to <publication
Microsoft	Microsoft Log Analytics Agent	1.0.0 to <OMS Agent for Linux GA v1.13.40-0
Microsoft	Microsoft Open Management Infrastructure	16.0 to <OMI Version 1.6.8-1
Microsoft	Microsoft System Center Operations Manager (SCOM)	1.0.0 to <OMI version: 1.6.8-1

References

2 Links

Vendor advisories

Open Management Infrastructure Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability

Other references

https://portal.msrc.microsoft.com/en-US/security-guidance/advisory/CVE-2021-38645

Record Details

Published

2021-09-15

Last updated

2026-08-10

Assigner (CNA)

microsoft

Credited to

More from Microsoft

All Microsoft CVEs→

CVE-2021-386479.8 CRITICAL

Open Management Infrastructure (OMI) Remote Code Execution Vulnerability

MicrosoftKEVEPSS 99.9%2021-09-15

CVE-2021-386487.8 HIGH

Open Management Infrastructure Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability

MicrosoftKEVEPSS 11.4%2021-09-15

CVE-2021-386497 HIGH

Open Management Infrastructure Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability

MicrosoftKEVEPSS 2.9%2021-09-15

CVE-2015-16359.8 CRITICAL

Microsoft HTTP.sys Remote Code Execution Vulnerability

KEVEPSS 100.0%2015-04-14

CVE record data © The MITRE Corporation, used under the CVE Terms of Use. Exploited-in-the-wild data from the CISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog (CC0). Exploit prediction scores by FIRST EPSS (first.org/epss). This site is not endorsed or certified by MITRE, NVD, CISA, or FIRST.