I want to make a WhatsApp message backup from a non-rooted Android 12 Phone. A few years ago, I used Whatsapp-Chat-Exporter to convert the backup to HTML, but first, I had to extract the database from the phone.
The method pointed out by Whatsapp-Chat-Exporter to extract from non-root has remained the same for many years: downgrade to an old version of WhatsApp that allows backup, then create an Android backup that contains the WhatsApp database.
This doesn’t work for WhatsApp for Business because there was no version that allowed backup. Depending on your use case, you might be able to move WhatsApp to a new device that can be rooted and then extract the files there (very easy when you have root access).
When looking at the new Zygote Bug by Meta Red Team X (CVE-2024-31317), I thought it could be used to perform backup extraction, but then I saw the previous entry on that blog (CVE-2024-0044), which is much easier to use (but only works in Android 12 and 13 that has not received Marh 2024 security update).
This exploit can work for any non-system app, not just for extracting data from WhatsApp/WhatsApp business. For an expert, the explanation for the exploit is very obvious. I am writing here for end users or beginners who need a step-by-step guide to extracting their WA database.
Continue reading “Extracting WhatsApp Database (or any app data) from Android 12/13 using CVE-2024-0044”