Red Hat said Quay, a registry that stores container images, has a critical flaw, CVE-2026-123710. Where untrusted clients can reach the /keys endpoint, an attacker with no account can take over how the registry signs access tokens, Red Hat said. SecurityWeek reported a severity score of 9.8.
Red Hat's advisory points to a missing check. Key rotation asks only whether a trusted key signed the token, not whether the token may rotate keys. So any token the registry hands out passes, and the attacker installs a key with no expiry. Red Hat said tokens from that key work on every repository, so private images can be read or changed and tags replaced. SecurityWeek said the rogue key also deletes the real key, and resetting passwords or robot tokens does not remove it. Red Hat names no fixed version. SecurityWeek said fixes were merged on GitHub on November 11.
A registry's signing key is the root of trust for every image pull. This flaw turns the registry from a gatekeeper into a way in, since swapped images reach systems that download them. Red Hat says deleting a rogue key will not hold until a fix is deployed. Ask: who can reach /keys, how fast could we spot an unknown key, and what pulls from this registry automatically?