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Built-In Screenshot Tools Leaves Artifacts

March 22, 2023

It’s a similar theme in that deleted doesn’t really mean deleted. A few days ago, Google patched a flaw called ‘aCropalypse’ where you could recover the original image after cropping as reported in MobileSyrup. Google patched the vulnerability for the Pixel Markup tool that “leaves data in the image file that could allow malicious actors to partially restore images that were cropped or edited.” The patch fixes edited images going forward, but historical screenshots still contain image artifacts. In other words, portions of the image may still be recovered from past images.

To continue on the theme, the Verge reported that Microsoft has a similar problem. One of the researchers that discovered the Pixel flaw reports that there is a similar exploit for Microsoft’s Snipping Tool for Windows 11 as well as the Snip & Sketch tool in Windows 10. “…if you take a screenshot with the tool, press the save button, and then crop it and save it to the same file, the data may still be available in the file.” Apparently, the original Snipping Tool for Windows 10 doesn’t have the problem. Who knew?

These reported bugs give you more incentive to use a third party tool like Snagit.

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