Clipped information from Windows screenshots can be recovered due to a bug

Clipped information from screenshots taken with Windows Snipping Tool can be recovered due to a bug. That’s what a researcher says. He recently published about the same bug working on Pixel phones.

Researcher David Buchanan confirms findings by software engineer Chris Blume that the aCropalypse bug also works on Windows. The bug makes it possible to partially or completely reconstruct parts that have been cut away or blurred in the original image. This is because the software does not delete the bytes of the original image, but only overwrites it, so parts that have not been overwritten remain in the file.

The same exploit works with minimal adjustments, Buchanan says. The pixel format is different because Snipping Tool uses an RGBA format, red-green-blue-alpha, versus the RGB format of the Pixel phones.

Microsoft has not yet responded to the finding, which could potentially reveal private information from screenshots. Google has already responded: the company has fixed the bug in the March update for many of its Pixel phones. 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.

Snipping tool Windows 11 aCropalypse: cut information can be reconstructed