Twitter users @ItsSimonsTime and @David3141593 have discovered a critical flaw in Google’s screenshot editing tool, Markup. As per the report, A serious privacy vulnerability has been found in Google Pixels’ inbuilt screenshot editor aka markup tool.
Screenshots edited before March can be partially recovered to see how the unedited photo looked like to reveal sensitive information. The exploit only works with the original PNG files, with apps like Discord or Instagram being affected as many convert your photos to JPG.
Introducing acropalypse: a serious privacy vulnerability in the Google Pixel’s inbuilt screenshot editing tool, Markup, enabling partial recovery of the original, unedited image data of a cropped and/or redacted screenshot. Huge thanks to @David3141593 for his help throughout! pic.twitter.com/BXNQomnHbr
— Simon Aarons (@ItsSimonTime) March 17, 2023
The issue affects Pixel devices and Custom ROMs with the Markup tool. It has been fixed with the March security patch update and you can check if your screenshots work using https://acropalypse.app. We will be making part two of this post when more information will be available.
The vulnerability enables:
- Partial recovery of the original image
- Recover unedited image data of a redacted image/screenshot
- Recover back the full image which was cropped before sending
Note: Google already patched this vulnerability in March Security Patches to eligible Pixels
Custom ROMs that use the Pixels’ markup tool for screenshot editor and are not on March SP should have this vulnerability still active. FAQs and demos of how this vulnerability works will be posted soon by the author.