This is a classic attack path that was already captured by plenty of EDRs/XDRs/CWPPs a couple years ago.

This is why you need either a rootless container setup or user namespaces to remap the container user to irrelevant host users. https://docs.docker.com/engine/security/userns-remap/

Weak that this isn't the default.

Every time I try to install Docker there's a warning that being in the "docker" group is equivalent to having root access.

You should probably know about this workaround by now.

this is the new GTD

This has been a known Docker "feature" since the beginning, nothing new here. This pattern is used to configure host machines by some tools.

clever girl...

This was of course dependent on yolo mode, but automatic approval has also been pulling stunts like this. A recent example is data that was purposely kept away from Codex in a folder far far away. When it found a single reference it just went for the data when having an issue. Lesson learned, keep essential data and Codex separated on different machines. Codex remote ssh actually helps here.

This is one of the main reasons people like Podman. Docker has this "feature" but as far as I remember, it needed some obscure configuration. I guess they don't add it as default as it will break many current setups.