A Study of Data Security on E-Governance using Steganographic Optimization Algorithms

Steganography has been used massively in numerous fields to maintain the privacy and integrity of messages transferred via the internet. The need to secure the information has augmented with the increase in e-governance usage. The wide adoption of e-governance services also opens the doors to cybercriminals for fraudulent activities in cyberspace. To deal with these cybercrimes we need optimized and advanced steganographic techniques. Various advanced optimization techniques can be applied to steganography to obtain better results for the security of information. Various optimization techniques like particle swarm optimization and genetic algorithms with cryptography can be used to protect information for e-governance services. In this study, a comprehensive review of steganographic algorithms using optimization techniques is presented. A new perspective on using this technique to protect the information for e-governance is also presented. Deep Learning might be the area that can be used to automate the steganography process in combination with other method

9/7 LIFT Reconfigurable Architecture Implementation for Image Authentication

Considering the information system medical images are the most sensitive and critical types of data. Transferring medical images over the internet requires the use of authentication algorithms that are resistant to attacks. Another aspect is confidentiality for secure storage and transfer of medical images. The proposed study presents an embedding technique to improve the security of medical images. As a part of preprocessing that involves removing the high-frequency components, Gaussian filters are used. To get LL band features CDF9/7 wavelet is employed. In a similar way, for the cover image, the LL band features are obtained. In order to get the 1st level of encryption the technique of alpha blending is used. It combines the LL band features of the secret image and cover images whereas LH, HL, and HH bands are applied to Inverse CDF 9/7. The resulting encrypted image along with the key obtained through LH, HL, and HH bands is transferred. The produced key adds an extra layer of protection, and similarly, the receiver does the reverse action to acquire the original secret image. The PSNR acquired from the suggested technique is compared to PSNR obtained from existing techniques to validate the results. Performance is quantified in terms of PSNR. A Spartan 6 FPGA board is used to synthesize the complete architecture in order to compare hardware consumption

Enhancing Mobile Cloud Computing Security Using Steganography

Cloud computing is an emerging and popular method of accessing shared and dynamically configurable resources via the computer network on demand. Cloud computing is excessively used by mobile applications to offload data over the network to the cloud. There are some security and privacy concerns using both mobile devices to offload data to the facilities provided by the cloud providers. One of the critical threats facing cloud users is the unauthorized access by the insiders (cloud administrators) or the justification of location where the cloud providers operating. Although, there exist variety of security mechanisms to prevent unauthorized access by unauthorized user by the cloud administration, but there is no security provision to prevent unauthorized access by the cloud administrators to the client data on the cloud computing. In this paper, we demonstrate how steganography, which is a secrecy method to hide information, can be used to enhance the security and privacy of data (images) maintained on the cloud by mobile applications. Our proposed model works with a key, which is embedded in the image along with the data, to provide an additional layer of security, namely, confidentiality of data. The practicality of the proposed method is represented via a simple case study

Information Security in Health Care Centre Using Cryptography and Steganography

As the volume of medicinal information stored electronically increase, so do the need to enhance how it is secured. The inaccessibility to patient record at the ideal time can prompt death toll and also well degrade the level of health care services rendered by the medicinal professionals. Criminal assaults in social insurance have expanded by 125% since 2010 and are now the leading cause of medical data breaches. This study therefore presents the combination of 3DES and LSB to improve security measure applied on medical data. Java programming language was used to develop a simulation program for the experiment. The result shows medical data can be stored, shared, and managed in a reliable and secure manner using the combined model.Comment: 13 pages, 10 figures, 1 tabl

Ensuring the security and privacy of information in mobile health-care communication systems

The sensitivity of health-care information and its accessibility via the Internet and mobile technology systems is a cause for concern in these modern times. The privacy, integrity and confidentiality of a patient’s data are key factors to be considered in the transmission of medical information for use by authorised health-care personnel. Mobile communication has enabled medical consultancy, treatment, drug administration and the provision of laboratory results to take place outside the hospital. With the implementation of electronic patient records and the Internet and Intranets, medical information sharing amongst relevant health-care providers was made possible. But the vital issue in this method of information sharing is security: the patient’s privacy, as well as the confidentiality and integrity of the health-care information system, should not be compromised. We examine various ways of ensuring the security and privacy of a patient’s electronic medical information in order to ensure the integrity and confidentiality of the information

A Novel Privacy Preserving Search Technique for Stego Data in Untrusted Cloud

We propose the first privacy preserving search technique for stego health data in untrusted cloud in this paper. The Cloud computing is a popular technology to the healthcare providers for outsourcing health data due to flexibility and cost effectiveness. However, outsourcing health data to the cloud introduces serious privacy issues to the patient. For example, dishonest personnel of the cloud provider may disclose patient sensitive information to business organizations for some financial benefits. Using steganography, patient sensitive information is hidden within health data for privacy preservation. As a result, stego health data is generated. To the best of our knowledge, no method exists for searching a particular stego data without disclosing any information to the cloud. We propose a framework for privacy preserving search over stego health data. We systematically describe each component of the proposed framework. We conduct several experiments to evaluate the performance of the framework

Fusion of Steganography Digital Watermarking Data Hidden In Patient Medical Image using PPC Approach

Privacy is a critical issue when the patient message storage or processing to the medical services. Digital Image processing is the quick emerging area of medical science. The improvement of image processing was given by the technology improvement like digital visualizing, computer processor and large storage devices. Image processing allowed to compute the image in multidimensional within the system. First, the real problem becomes many severe due to the decrease of visual proofs in telehealth applications. A watermark is a protect message that message hidden into a mask message. Digital image watermarks are used for check the approval of the carrier signal for confirmation of the owners. In order to give information honesty, confidentiality and authentication various approaches are accessible like networking side cryptography, image processing side steganography and digital watermarking. To protect the patient message in telehealth, hidden into a mask message is recently used. Patient details are watermark within the cover medical image. The public and personal key cryptography (PPC) is insufficient for providing the trust a patient may attain during a face-to-face service

Design of a secure architecture for the exchange of biomedical information in m-Health scenarios

El paradigma de m-Salud (salud móvil) aboga por la integración masiva de las más avanzadas tecnologías de comunicación, red móvil y sensores en aplicaciones y sistemas de salud, para fomentar el despliegue de un nuevo modelo de atención clínica centrada en el usuario/paciente. Este modelo tiene por objetivos el empoderamiento de los usuarios en la gestión de su propia salud (p.ej. aumentando sus conocimientos, promocionando estilos de vida saludable y previniendo enfermedades), la prestación de una mejor tele-asistencia sanitaria en el hogar para ancianos y pacientes crónicos y una notable disminución del gasto de los Sistemas de Salud gracias a la reducción del número y la duración de las hospitalizaciones. No obstante, estas ventajas, atribuidas a las aplicaciones de m-Salud, suelen venir acompañadas del requisito de un alto grado de disponibilidad de la información biomédica de sus usuarios para garantizar una alta calidad de servicio, p.ej. fusionar varias señales de un usuario para obtener un diagnóstico más preciso. La consecuencia negativa de cumplir esta demanda es el aumento directo de las superficies potencialmente vulnerables a ataques, lo que sitúa a la seguridad (y a la privacidad) del modelo de m-Salud como factor crítico para su éxito. Como requisito no funcional de las aplicaciones de m-Salud, la seguridad ha recibido menos atención que otros requisitos técnicos que eran más urgentes en etapas de desarrollo previas, tales como la robustez, la eficiencia, la interoperabilidad o la usabilidad. Otro factor importante que ha contribuido a retrasar la implementación de políticas de seguridad sólidas es que garantizar un determinado nivel de seguridad implica unos costes que pueden ser muy relevantes en varias dimensiones, en especial en la económica (p.ej. sobrecostes por la inclusión de hardware extra para la autenticación de usuarios), en el rendimiento (p.ej. reducción de la eficiencia y de la interoperabilidad debido a la integración de elementos de seguridad) y en la usabilidad (p.ej. configuración más complicada de dispositivos y aplicaciones de salud debido a las nuevas opciones de seguridad). Por tanto, las soluciones de seguridad que persigan satisfacer a todos los actores del contexto de m-Salud (usuarios, pacientes, personal médico, personal técnico, legisladores, fabricantes de dispositivos y equipos, etc.) deben ser robustas y al mismo tiempo minimizar sus costes asociados. Esta Tesis detalla una propuesta de seguridad, compuesta por cuatro grandes bloques interconectados, para dotar de seguridad a las arquitecturas de m-Salud con unos costes reducidos. El primer bloque define un esquema global que proporciona unos niveles de seguridad e interoperabilidad acordes con las características de las distintas aplicaciones de m-Salud. Este esquema está compuesto por tres capas diferenciadas, diseñadas a la medidas de los dominios de m-Salud y de sus restricciones, incluyendo medidas de seguridad adecuadas para la defensa contra las amenazas asociadas a sus aplicaciones de m-Salud. El segundo bloque establece la extensión de seguridad de aquellos protocolos estándar que permiten la adquisición, el intercambio y/o la administración de información biomédica -- por tanto, usados por muchas aplicaciones de m-Salud -- pero no reúnen los niveles de seguridad detallados en el esquema previo. Estas extensiones se concretan para los estándares biomédicos ISO/IEEE 11073 PHD y SCP-ECG. El tercer bloque propone nuevas formas de fortalecer la seguridad de los tests biomédicos, que constituyen el elemento esencial de muchas aplicaciones de m-Salud de carácter clínico, mediante codificaciones novedosas. Finalmente el cuarto bloque, que se sitúa en paralelo a los anteriores, selecciona herramientas genéricas de seguridad (elementos de autenticación y criptográficos) cuya integración en los otros bloques resulta idónea, y desarrolla nuevas herramientas de seguridad, basadas en señal -- embedding y keytagging --, para reforzar la protección de los test biomédicos.The paradigm of m-Health (mobile health) advocates for the massive integration of advanced mobile communications, network and sensor technologies in healthcare applications and systems to foster the deployment of a new, user/patient-centered healthcare model enabling the empowerment of users in the management of their health (e.g. by increasing their health literacy, promoting healthy lifestyles and the prevention of diseases), a better home-based healthcare delivery for elderly and chronic patients and important savings for healthcare systems due to the reduction of hospitalizations in number and duration. It is a fact that many m-Health applications demand high availability of biomedical information from their users (for further accurate analysis, e.g. by fusion of various signals) to guarantee high quality of service, which on the other hand entails increasing the potential surfaces for attacks. Therefore, it is not surprising that security (and privacy) is commonly included among the most important barriers for the success of m-Health. As a non-functional requirement for m-Health applications, security has received less attention than other technical issues that were more pressing at earlier development stages, such as reliability, eficiency, interoperability or usability. Another fact that has contributed to delaying the enforcement of robust security policies is that guaranteeing a certain security level implies costs that can be very relevant and that span along diferent dimensions. These include budgeting (e.g. the demand of extra hardware for user authentication), performance (e.g. lower eficiency and interoperability due to the addition of security elements) and usability (e.g. cumbersome configuration of devices and applications due to security options). Therefore, security solutions that aim to satisfy all the stakeholders in the m-Health context (users/patients, medical staff, technical staff, systems and devices manufacturers, regulators, etc.) shall be robust and, at the same time, minimize their associated costs. This Thesis details a proposal, composed of four interrelated blocks, to integrate appropriate levels of security in m-Health architectures in a cost-efcient manner. The first block designes a global scheme that provides different security and interoperability levels accordingto how critical are the m-Health applications to be implemented. This consists ofthree layers tailored to the m-Health domains and their constraints, whose security countermeasures defend against the threats of their associated m-Health applications. Next, the second block addresses the security extension of those standard protocols that enable the acquisition, exchange and/or management of biomedical information | thus, used by many m-Health applications | but do not meet the security levels described in the former scheme. These extensions are materialized for the biomedical standards ISO/IEEE 11073 PHD and SCP-ECG. Then, the third block proposes new ways of enhancing the security of biomedical standards, which are the centerpiece of many clinical m-Health applications, by means of novel codings. Finally the fourth block, with is parallel to the others, selects generic security methods (for user authentication and cryptographic protection) whose integration in the other blocks results optimal, and also develops novel signal-based methods (embedding and keytagging) for strengthening the security of biomedical tests. The layer-based extensions of the standards ISO/IEEE 11073 PHD and SCP-ECG can be considered as robust, cost-eficient and respectful with their original features and contents. The former adds no attributes to its data information model, four new frames to the service model |and extends four with new sub-frames|, and only one new sub-state to the communication model. Furthermore, a lightweight architecture consisting of a personal health device mounting a 9 MHz processor and an aggregator mounting a 1 GHz processor is enough to transmit a 3-lead electrocardiogram in real-time implementing the top security layer. The extra requirements associated to this extension are an initial configuration of the health device and the aggregator, tokens for identification/authentication of users if these devices are to be shared and the implementation of certain IHE profiles in the aggregator to enable the integration of measurements in healthcare systems. As regards to the extension of SCP-ECG, it only adds a new section with selected security elements and syntax in order to protect the rest of file contents and provide proper role-based access control. The overhead introduced in the protected SCP-ECG is typically 2{13 % of the regular file size, and the extra delays to protect a newly generated SCP-ECG file and to access it for interpretation are respectively a 2{10 % and a 5 % of the regular delays. As regards to the signal-based security techniques developed, the embedding method is the basis for the proposal of a generic coding for tests composed of biomedical signals, periodic measurements and contextual information. This has been adjusted and evaluated with electrocardiogram and electroencephalogram-based tests, proving the objective clinical quality of the coded tests, the capacity of the coding-access system to operate in real-time (overall delays of 2 s for electrocardiograms and 3.3 s for electroencephalograms) and its high usability. Despite of the embedding of security and metadata to enable m-Health services, the compression ratios obtained by this coding range from ' 3 in real-time transmission to ' 5 in offline operation. Complementarily, keytagging permits associating information to images (and other signals) by means of keys in a secure and non-distorting fashion, which has been availed to implement security measures such as image authentication, integrity control and location of tampered areas, private captioning with role-based access control, traceability and copyright protection. The tests conducted indicate a remarkable robustness-capacity tradeoff that permits implementing all this measures simultaneously, and the compatibility of keytagging with JPEG2000 compression, maintaining this tradeoff while setting the overall keytagging delay in only ' 120 ms for any image size | evidencing the scalability of this technique. As a general conclusion, it has been demonstrated and illustrated with examples that there are various, complementary and structured manners to contribute in the implementation of suitable security levels for m-Health architectures with a moderate cost in budget, performance, interoperability and usability. The m-Health landscape is evolving permanently along all their dimensions, and this Thesis aims to do so with its security. Furthermore, the lessons learned herein may offer further guidance for the elaboration of more comprehensive and updated security schemes, for the extension of other biomedical standards featuring low emphasis on security or privacy, and for the improvement of the state of the art regarding signal-based protection methods and applications