OpenReception's bootstrap challenge proof-of-work difficulty hardcoded to 16 bits, which enables abuse rate amplification

Summary

CVECVE-2026-48082
StatePUBLISHED
AssignerGitHub_M
Source PriorityCVE Program / NVD first with legacy fallback
Published2026-08-06 22:17:10 UTC
Updated2026-08-07 18:17:18 UTC
DescriptionOpenReception'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.

Risk And Classification

Primary CVSS: v3.1 3.7 LOW from [email protected]

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

Problem Types: CWE-770 | CWE-770 CWE-770: Allocation of Resources Without Limits or Throttling


VersionSourceTypeScoreSeverityVector
3.1[email protected]Secondary3.7LOWCVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:L
3.1CNADECLARED3.7LOWCVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:L

CVSS v3.1 Breakdown

Attack Vector
Network
Attack Complexity
High
Privileges Required
None
User Interaction
None
Scope
Unchanged
Confidentiality
None
Integrity
None
Availability
Low

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

Vendor Declared Affected Products

SourceVendorProductVersionPlatforms
CNA Open-reception Appointment-booking-software affected < 1.0.6 Not specified

References

ReferenceSourceLinkTags
github.com/open-reception/appointment-booking-software/security/advisori... 134c704f-9b21-4f2e-91b3-4a467353bcc0 github.com
github.com/open-reception/appointment-booking-software/commit/e9c96c049e... [email protected] github.com
CVE Program record CVE.ORG www.cve.org canonical
NVD vulnerability detail NVD nvd.nist.gov canonical, analysis

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