Beware: Images, Video Shared on Signal Hang Around

A researcher is warning users of the Signal secure messaging application that photos and video files shared in Signal chats may be hanging around on their devices unencrypted, even after the messages in which the images were shared have been deleted, putting users at risk. Researcher John Jackson (@johnjhacking) warned in a Twitter post on Saturday that the Signal secure messaging application doesn’t encrypt images shared in chat messages when they are stored locally, and that those images may linger on devices for weeks or months. In that case, which Jackson disclosed in January, 2021, he found that Keybase also did not adequately clear the application cache and some residual files can be viewed, with no form of encryption on the files.