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Microsoft to fix Windows 11 'aCropalypse' privacy failure:
Updated Microsoft is said to be preparing to fix the high-profile "aCropalypse" privacy bug in its Snipping Tool for Windows 11.
Users can remove sensitive information or some other parts of photos, screenshots, and other images by cropping them using the Snipping Tool app. The problem is that for the Windows 11 app – as well as Microsoft's Snip & Sketch cropping tool in Windows 10 – the file of the cropped image still includes the cropped out portions, which can be recovered and viewed.
A similar flaw was found in Google's Markup image-editing app for its Pixel smartphones. According to reverse engineers Simon Aarons and David Buchanan – who named the bug aCropalyse – the problem affects Pixel smartphones since 2018, when the 3 series came out. Google patched its code to avoid leaking cropped areas of images.
Then this week, Buchanan confirmed that the Windows Snipping Tool and Snip & Sketch software had the same issue. If a user cropped a photo or other image using the software and then saved the edited image over the original file, that file still contains the cropped-out portion. The area isn't visible when viewing the image using normal tools, but the data is still there in the file, and can be restored and viewed using appropriate recovery software.
Steven Murdoch, a professor of security engineering at the UK's University College London, shared some thoughts here on the underlying issue within Windows, specifically its latest Save File API, which he described as "defective by design."
[...] Meanwhile, if you've used Microsoft's code to crop your snaps and then shared them on, be aware someone with a copy of them might be able to recover the lopped-off portions. ®
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Tuesday March 28, @12:22PM (3 children)
But they're still too incompetent to overwrite a file properly.
Today is the dumb future you never expected...
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Mojibake Tengu on Tuesday March 28, @12:53PM
I did.
Though for decades, everyone denounced me as paranoid pessimist.
My life credo: You are never paranoid enough.
Frankly, how user files could be ever overwritten, if they reside in clouds, forever criminate?
The edge of 太玄 cannot be defined, for it is beyond every aspect of design
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 28, @01:16PM (1 child)
Not that I have any big secrets here, but I didn't see any mention of this problem for the Snipping Tool in Win7 (which I use occasionally). The links in the fine article only mention Win 10 & 11.
Anyone know if the bug goes back as far as Win 7 (Pro)? I know I'm not alone in still using 7...
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Tuesday March 28, @09:22PM
Says the Anonymous Coward.
(as I'm sitting here writing this on Win7...sigh.)