CVE-2026-1148 identifies a Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF) vulnerability in version 1.0 of the SourceCodester Patients Waiting Area Queue Management System, a software solution used to manage patient queues in healthcare facilities. CSRF vulnerabilities occur when an attacker tricks an authenticated user into submitting unauthorized requests to a web application, exploiting the user's active session. This particular vulnerability allows remote attackers to perform state-changing operations without requiring authentication or elevated privileges, relying solely on user interaction such as clicking a crafted link or visiting a malicious webpage. The vulnerability affects the integrity of the system by enabling unauthorized modifications to queue data or patient management functions, potentially disrupting healthcare operations. The CVSS 4.0 base score is 5.3 (medium severity), reflecting that the attack vector is network-based with low attack complexity and no privileges required, but user interaction is necessary. No known exploits have been reported in the wild, and no official patches have been released as of the publication date. The lack of anti-CSRF protections such as tokens or referer validation likely contributes to this vulnerability. Given the critical role of queue management in healthcare settings, exploitation could lead to patient service delays, data inconsistencies, or unauthorized changes to patient flow management.

For European healthcare organizations, this vulnerability poses risks to the integrity and availability of patient queue management systems. Unauthorized state changes could disrupt patient scheduling, leading to delays, mismanagement of patient flow, and potential patient safety concerns. While confidentiality impact is minimal, integrity and availability impacts are significant in a healthcare context where timely patient processing is critical. Disruptions could also erode patient trust and lead to regulatory scrutiny under GDPR if patient care is affected. The remote and unauthenticated nature of the attack increases the threat surface, especially in environments where users access the system via web browsers without additional protections. The absence of known exploits currently limits immediate risk, but the medium severity score and critical operational role of the software necessitate proactive mitigation.

Organizations should implement robust anti-CSRF protections immediately. This includes adding unique, unpredictable CSRF tokens to all state-changing forms and validating these tokens on the server side. Additionally, validating the HTTP Referer or Origin headers can help detect and block unauthorized cross-origin requests. Session management should be tightened to ensure sessions expire appropriately and are invalidated after logout. User education on avoiding suspicious links and phishing attempts can reduce the risk of user interaction exploitation. Network-level protections such as web application firewalls (WAFs) can be configured to detect and block CSRF attack patterns. Since no official patch is available, organizations should consider isolating or restricting access to the affected system until mitigations are in place. Monitoring logs for unusual request patterns can help detect attempted exploitation. Finally, organizations should engage with the vendor or community to obtain or develop patches and updates.