DOCKER has patched a critical vulnerability in Docker Hub that allowed one user to perform actions on another user’s images, effectively letting an attacker push, pull or delete images under a different identity. The flaw lived in the feature that converts a personal account into an organisation, transferring the account’s personal access tokens (PATs) to the designated organisation owner.
Docker states the issue was restricted to the registry and did not grant access to the Docker Hub web interface or to alter passwords, emails or two‑factor settings. The company has assigned CVE-2026-105445 to the flaw, rating it critical with a CVSS 4.0 score of 9.4.
Disclosures from researchers and Docker explain that during a conversion, each token’s ownership could be reassigned while its secret remained unchanged. An attacker could create a token on a compromised account, convert that account into an organisation, and name another user as owner, causing the token to operate with that owner’s privileges on the registry. Docker’s review of roughly 304,000 transfers found no evidence of exploitation during the two years the flaw was open.
Researchers Peter Molnar and Krisztian Hozak of mptrdev[.]com reported the flaw to Docker, which fixed it on 30 September 2026, less than four hours after notification. They named the flaw GhostPat.
Docker notified affected users on 2 October 2026 and subsequently deactivated identified transferred tokens on 8 October 2026 (tokens the owners asked to keep were not disabled). The advisory urges users to audit and revoke unfamiliar tokens and to prefer organisation access tokens for automation tied to an organisation. It also notes that the change history and activity logs can help identify token movements and pushes, with logs retained in Docker Hub and via the API.