454

When Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella revealed the new Windows AI tool that can answer questions about your web browsing and laptop use, he said one of the “magical” things about it was that the data doesn’t leave your laptop; the Windows Recall system takes screenshots of your activity every five seconds and saves them on the device. But security experts say that data may not stay there for long.

Two weeks ahead of Recall’s launch on new Copilot+ PCs on June 18, security researchers have demonstrated how preview versions of the tool store the screenshots in an unencrypted database. The researchers say the data could easily be hoovered up by an attacker. And now, in a warning about how Recall could be abused by criminal hackers, Alex Hagenah, a cybersecurity strategist and ethical hacker, has released a demo tool that can automatically extract and display everything Recall records on a laptop.

Dubbed TotalRecall—yes, after the 1990 sci-fi film—the tool can pull all the information that Recall saves into its main database on a Windows laptop. “The database is unencrypted. It’s all plain text,” Hagenah says.⁩ Since Microsoft revealed Recall in mid-May, security researchers have repeatedly compared it to spyware or stalkerware that can track everything you do on your device. “It’s a Trojan 2.0 really, built in,” Hagenah says, adding that he built TotalRecall—which he’s releasing on GitHub—in order to show what is possible and to encourage Microsoft to make changes before Recall fully launches.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[-] AceSLS@ani.social 108 points 5 months ago

They store it unencrypted in 2024? This should be illegal. Now every fucking Program you run can basically know everything you ever did since every shit is spyware nowadays to get that sweet data collection going

[-] MrOxiMoron@lemmy.world 48 points 5 months ago

Even if they encrypt it, the computer needs access to the data thus needs the decryption key. So it's not very secure anyway.

[-] 9point6@lemmy.world 20 points 5 months ago

I guess the solution would involve keys on the TPM so that they shouldn't need to be sat on attached storage or in memory. Although I'm not sure I'd trust all TPM implementations to have the performance necessary for the extra load (I believe bitlocker keys get cached in memory once you have unlocked the drive, for example)

[-] AceSLS@ani.social 5 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

Well yeah, but they should atleast store the key outside of userspace

[-] BeigeAgenda@lemmy.ca 15 points 5 months ago

The key is stored in $APPDATA\WelcomeMat

[-] lemmyvore@feddit.nl 41 points 5 months ago

Even if it were encrypted, if access to it doesn't involve explicit confirmation and a password then it can be automated.

And if it can be automated then malware that gets on the machine will be able to access it whether it's encrypted or not.

But let's be real, the whole reason Microsoft is doing this is so they can parse your data for AI. And storing it unencrypted makes it easier for them.

Also "the data won't leave your machine" is a red herring. Yeah the data won't; but the results of AI processing will. They'll take what they need and transfer that out, and leave you holding the bag.

[-] barsquid@lemmy.world 7 points 5 months ago

They will have your computer calculating hyperspecific queries for ads.

[-] mryessir@lemmy.sdf.org 2 points 5 months ago

I would be happy to provide my energy to microsoft's openai /s

this post was submitted on 07 Jun 2024
454 points (97.5% liked)

Technology

59708 readers
1735 users here now

This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.


Our Rules


  1. Follow the lemmy.world rules.
  2. Only tech related content.
  3. Be excellent to each another!
  4. Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
  5. Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
  6. Politics threads may be removed.
  7. No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
  8. Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
  9. Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed

Approved Bots


founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS