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Actively exploited in the wild. This CVE is on the CISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities list — treat remediation as urgent. Federal remediation due by 17 Nov 2021.
Azure Automation State ConfigurationApplication · Microsoft

CVE-2021-38648

HIGH · 7.8 CVSS v3.1 Published 2021-09-15
Patch available
A vendor patch is available. No clean upgrade release — apply the published patch.
See remediation →
96/100
Remediation priority · Urgent
In the wild Public exploit Zero-click Patch available

Official description Straight from the sourceThe vendor's or NVD's own wording, published unedited. Authoritative, but often terse — it says what broke, rarely what to do.

NVD · unedited
Open Management Infrastructure Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability

Technical summary Written by usOur analysis, written from the advisory, the CVSS vector and the affected-version data. It adds context the advisory leaves out, and never invents facts that are not in the source.

dbcve analysis · moderate confidence

CVE-2021-38648 is an elevation of privilege vulnerability in Open Management Infrastructure (OMI), a Windows management component. The vulnerability allows an authenticated attacker to gain higher privileges than originally granted, potentially leading to complete system compromise.

MitigationApply the relevant security update for Open Management Infrastructure. Prioritize patching OMI installations in production environments, particularly those exposed to network access, as elevation of Privilege vulnerabilities can be chained with other flaws.

Verify against the referenced sources before acting — the references below are authoritative for this CVE, this summary is not.

Affected products & versions What the vendor confirmedThe version ranges the vendor confirmed as vulnerable. If your version sits inside a range here, treat yourself as exposed until you have upgraded.

NVD · CPE data
Azure Automation State ConfigurationApplication
Affected:all versions
Azure Automation Update ManagementApplication
Affected:all versions
Azure Diagnostics \(lad\)Application
Affected:all versions
Azure Open Management InfrastructureApplication
Affected:all versions
Azure Security CenterApplication
Affected:all versions
Azure SentinelApplication
Affected:all versions
Azure Stack HubApplication
Affected:all versions
Container Monitoring SolutionApplication
Affected:all versions

CVSS breakdown How the score is builtThe industry scoring standard. It rates how the flaw is reached, what it takes to exploit, and what an attacker gains — the score is derived from those, not the other way round.

From the vector
Attack vector
Local
Complexity
Low
Privileges
Low
User interaction
None
Scope
Unchanged
Confidentiality
High
Integrity
High
Availability
High

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

Am I affected? How to checkSteps we derive from the advisory and the affected-version data, so you can decide whether this CVE reaches your setup. They are a guide, not a scan — your own configuration is the authority.

dbcve checks

Work through these to decide whether this CVE applies to you.

  1. Identify if OMI is installed
    Run 'sc query omiserver' on Windows or 'systemctl list-units | grep omi' on Linux to check for the OMI service. Also check for common OMI installation paths such as /opt/omi, /usr/omi, or C:\Program Files\OMI on Windows.
    Affected if The OMI service or binary is found on the system
  2. Confirm OMI service is running
    Check running processes for 'omi', 'omiserver', or 'scx' processes. On Windows run 'tasklist | findstr omi', on Linux run 'ps aux | grep omi'.
    Affected if An OMI-related process is actively running with elevated privileges
  3. Determine OMI version
    Run the OMI version command: on Linux '/opt/omi/bin/omiserver --version' or check the binary version; on Windows check the file version of omiserver.exe in the installation directory.
    Affected if The installed version is any version that has not been patched with the September 2021 security updates (compare against vendor advisories for patched version numbers)
  4. Check for Azure-connected systems
    Review system inventory or Azure portal for subscriptions using Azure Automation, Azure Security Center, Azure Sentinel, Azure Stack Hub, or Azure Monitor Container Monitoring. These services internally deploy OMI agents.
    Affected if The system is managed by any of the affected Azure services listed in the CVE (Automation State Configuration, Update Management, Security Center, Sentinel, or Container Monitoring)
  5. Verify OMI port listeners
    Check for listening ports commonly used by OMI: run 'netstat -an | findstr 5985' or 'netstat -an | findstr 5986' (default WS-Man/HTTP ports) or check /etc/omi on Linux for configuration.
    Affected if OMI is listening on network ports, indicating the vulnerable service is exposed

A system is affected if OMI (Open Management Infrastructure) is installed and running, regardless of version, on any Azure-managed or on-premises system that uses the affected Azure services or the OMI framework.

Generated from the published advisory. Verify against your own configuration.

Check your environment

Paste your version and any relevant configuration and it will be compared against the affected criteria above. Do not include secrets or credentials.

AI-assisted, checked against the advisory. Informational, not a guarantee.

Remediation Closing itWhat it takes to close this. Where a vendor fix exists we point at it; where none exists we say so plainly, and can build one. Effort estimates are scoped from the advisory, not from your codebase.

From vendor data
Patch available Apply the vendor patch
Vendor patch portal.msrc.microsoft.com →
Interim mitigation

Apply the relevant security update for Open Management Infrastructure. Prioritize patching OMI installations in production environments, particularly those exposed to network access, as elevation of Privilege vulnerabilities can be chained with other flaws.

Fix this in Azure Automation State Configuration Exploited in the wild — priority engagement
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  • Implementation8.0 h
  • Testing8.0 h
  • Review / QA4.0 h
24.0 hours of engineering $4,160
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Scan for this in your stack

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References Go to the primary sourcePrimary sources — vendor advisories, patches and trackers. Where our summary and a reference disagree, the reference wins.

Primary sources

Practitioner notes

Contributed

Peer-ranked notes from engineers who’ve handled CVE-2021-38648 in production — separate from our analysis above.

No notes yet

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What this is

A place for practitioners to share what actually worked: a mitigation you’ve tested, a configuration change, a version- or environment-specific caveat, or a link to a verified patch. The most useful notes rise to the top as peers upvote them, so the signal stays high.

What belongs here
  • Verified mitigations, workarounds, and config changes
  • Version or environment caveats, and links to real fixes
  • No weaponised exploit code, or anything meant to cause harm
  • No spam, self-promotion, credentials, or personal data