Clipped information from Google Pixel screenshots can be retrieved due to a bug

Information that users of Google Pixel phones have cut away can in many cases be retrieved through a bug. Google has fixed the vulnerability for many phones, but the bug can still have negative consequences.

Researchers Simon Aaarons and David Buchanan found the bug and have posted an explanation online. The bug, which they call aCropalypse, means that in many screenshots from Pixel phones where parts have been cut out or blurred, the original image can be partially or completely reconstructed. The researchers have put a tool online, with which this can be tested.

Google had rated the bug as ‘high’ because it could potentially leak users’ private data. Because some web services themselves apply compression to images, screenshots sent cannot be reconstructed in many cases. Twitter, among others, compresses images itself, but Discord did not do that for a long time.

Google has fixed the bug in the March update for many of its Pixel phones. O The bug has been in the system since Android 10 and is due to an error which had been known for a few years. It is unknown whether the leak has been exploited.