Low severity · published Aug 6, 2026
CVE-2026-48082
OpenReception's bootstrap challenge proof-of-work difficulty hardcoded to 16 bits, which enables abuse rate amplification
3.7
CVSS
0.4%
EPSS
No
On KEV
Description
OpenReception's appointment booking software provides an end-to-end encrypted appointment booking platform. Prior to version 1.0.6, the bootstrap challenge endpoint at `/api/tenants/{id}/appointments/bootstrap-challenge` issues a SHA-256 proof-of-work with `difficulty=4` hex zeros, equivalent to 16 bits of work. Modern hardware solves this in under 200 milliseconds, providing essentially no friction against automated abuse of the patient booking flow. Proof-of-work is used in the booking flow as a rate-limiter for unauthenticated clients establishing tunnels and submitting appointments. At 16 bits of difficulty, the construct is decorative rather than effective. An attacker can solve PoW challenges as fast as the server can issue them, defeating the rate-limiting purpose. The handler also calls `challengeThrottleService.checkThrottle(binding, "passkey")`, but the binding includes attacker-controlled values (`tunnelId`, `clientPublicKey`, and optional `emailHash`). For each fresh attempt, the attacker can supply new values, producing a new throttle key and bypassing the per-binding accumulation. Practical abuse friction is therefore the PoW difficulty itself, not a stable per-IP or per-email server-side throttle. Version 1.0.6 fixes the issue.
CVSS vector
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:L
Attack vector
Network
Complexity
High
Privileges
None
User interaction
None
Confidentiality
None
Integrity
None
Availability
Low
Scope
Unchanged
Exploitation
Is it being used?
Exploit prediction (EPSS)0.4% · higher than 33% of CVEs
Exploited in the wildNo evidence yet
CISA KEVNot listed
Ransomware campaign useNot known
Affected products
Which versions
AP
appointment-booking-software · open-reception
< 1.0.6 · source: vendor
References
NVD
https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-48082
CVE.org
https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2026-48082
github.com
https://github.com/open-reception/appointment-booking-software/commit/e9c96c049ebf558df7a9e4c5c93f6fe2b092c8c6
github.com
https://github.com/open-reception/appointment-booking-software/security/advisories/GHSA-hm9g-mh7x-657g
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