An Analysis of Perturbed Quantization Steganography in the Spatial Domain

Steganography is a form of secret communication in which a message is hidden into a harmless cover object, concealing the actual existence of the message. Due to the potential abuse by criminals and terrorists, much research has also gone into the field of steganalysis - the art of detecting and deciphering a hidden message. As many novel steganographic hiding algorithms become publicly known, researchers exploit these methods by finding statistical irregularities between clean digital images and images containing hidden data. This creates an on-going race between the two fields and requires constant countermeasures on the part of steganographers in order to maintain truly covert communication. This research effort extends upon previous work in perturbed quantization (PQ) steganography by examining its applicability to the spatial domain. Several different information-reducing transformations are implemented along with the PQ system to study their effect on the security of the system as well as their effect on the steganographic capacity of the system. Additionally, a new statistical attack is formulated for detecting ± 1 embedding techniques in color images. Results from performing state-of-the-art steganalysis reveal that the system is less detectable than comparable hiding methods. Grayscale images embedded with message payloads of 0.4bpp are detected only 9% more accurately than by random guessing, and color images embedded with payloads of 0.2bpp are successfully detected only 6% more reliably than by random guessing

PIRANHA: an engine for a methodology of detecting covert communication via image-based steganography

In current cutting-edge steganalysis research, model-building and machine learning has been utilized to detect steganography. However, these models are computationally and cognitively cumbersome, and are specifically and exactly targeted to attack one and only one type of steganography. The model built and utilized in this thesis has shown capability in detecting a class or family of steganography, while also demonstrating that it is viable to construct a minimalist model for steganalysis. The notion of detecting steganographic primitives or families is one that has not been discussed in literature, and would serve well as a first-pass steganographic detection methodology. The model built here serves this end well, and it must be kept in mind that the model presented is posited to work as a front-end broad-pass filter for some of the more computationally advanced and directed stganalytic algorithms currently in use. This thesis attempts to convey a view of steganography and steganalysis in a manner more utilitarian and immediately useful to everyday scenarios. This is vastly different from a good many publications that treat the topic as one relegated only to cloak-and-dagger information passing. The subsequent view of steganography as primarily a communications tool useable by petty information brokers and the like directs the text and helps ensure that the notion of steganography as a digital dead-drop box is abandoned in favor of a more grounded approach. As such, the model presented underperforms specialized models that have been presented in current literature, but also makes use of a large image sample space (747 images) as well as images that are contextually diverse and representative of those seen in wide use. In future applications by either law-enforcement or corporate officials, it is hoped that the model presented in this thesis can aid in rapid and targeted responses without causing undue strain upon an eventual human operator. As such, a design constraint that was utilized for this research favored a False Negative as opposed to a False Positive - this methodology helps to ensure that, in the event of an alert, it is worthwhile to apply a more directed attack against the flagged image

El uso de bloques de imagen en el dominio espacial como una vía robusta de estenografía

Steganography is a way to convey secret communication, with rapid electronic communication and high demand of using the internet, steganography has become a wide field of research and discussion. In this paper a new approach for hiding information in cover image proposed in spatial domain, the proposed approach divides the host image into blocks of size (8x8) pixels and message bits are embeds into the pixels of a cover image. The 64-pixel values of each block converted to be represented in binary system and compared with corresponding secret data bits for finding the matching and hold 6-pixels. The search process performed by comparing each secret data bit (8-bits) with created binary plane at the cover image, if matching is found the last row of the created binary plane which is (LSB) is modified to indicate the location of the matched bits sequence “which is the secret data” and number of the row, if matching is not found in all 7th rows the secret sequence is copied in to the corresponding 8th row location.The payload of this technique is 6 pixels’ message (48-bits) in each block. In the experiments secret messages are randomly embedded into different images. The quality of the stego-image from which the original text message is extracted is not affected at all. For validation of the presented mechanism, the capacity, the circuit complexity, and the measurement of distortion against steganalysis is evaluated using the peak-signal-to-noise ratio (PSNR) are analyzed

A study on the false positive rate of Stegdetect

In this paper we analyse Stegdetect, one of the well-known image steganalysis tools, to study its false positive rate. In doing so, we process more than 40,000 images randomly downloaded from the Internet using Google images, together with 25,000 images from the ASIRRA (Animal Species Image Recognition for Restricting Access) public corpus. The aim of this study is to help digital forensic analysts, aiming to study a large number of image files during an investigation, to better understand the capabilities and the limitations of steganalysis tools like Stegdetect. The results obtained show that the rate of false positives generated by Stegdetect depends highly on the chosen sensitivity value, and it is generally quite high. This should support the forensic expert to have better interpretation in their results, and taking the false positive rates into consideration. Additionally, we have provided a detailed statistical analysis for the obtained results to study the difference in detection between selected groups, close groups and different groups of images. This method can be applied to any steganalysis tool, which gives the analyst a better understanding of the detection results, especially when he has no prior information about the false positive rate of the tool

A review and open issues of multifarious image steganography techniques in spatial domain

Nowadays, information hiding is becoming a helpful technique and fetch more attention due fast growth of using internet, it is applied for sending secret information by using different techniques. Steganography is one of major important technique in information hiding. Steganography is science of concealing the secure information within a carrier object to provide the secure communication though the internet, so that no one can recognize and detect it’s except the sender & receiver. In steganography, many various carrier formats can be used such as an image, video, protocol, audio. The digital image is most popular used as a carrier file due its frequency on internet. There are many techniques variable for image steganography, each has own strong and weak points. In this study, we conducted a review of image steganography in spatial domain to explore the term image steganography by reviewing, collecting, synthesizing and analyze the challenges of different studies which related to this area published from 2014 to 2017. The aims of this review is provides an overview of image steganography and comparison between approved studies are discussed according to the pixel selection, payload capacity and embedding algorithm to open important research issues in the future works and obtain a robust method

Data hiding techniques in steganography using fibonacci sequence and knight tour algorithm

The foremost priority in the information and communication technology era, is achieving an efficient and accurate steganography system for hiding information. The developed system of hiding the secret message must capable of not giving any clue to the adversaries about the hidden data. In this regard, enhancing the security and capacity by maintaining the Peak Signal-to-Noise Ratio (PSNR) of the steganography system is the main issue to be addressed. This study proposed an improved for embedding secret message into an image. This newly developed method is demonstrated to increase the security and capacity to resolve the existing problems. A binary text image is used to represent the secret message instead of normal text. Three stages implementations are used to select the pixel before random embedding to select block of (64 × 64) pixels, follows by the Knight Tour algorithm to select sub-block of (8 × 8) pixels, and finally by the random pixels selection. For secret embedding, Fibonacci sequence is implemented to decomposition pixel from 8 bitplane to 12 bitplane. The proposed method is distributed over the entire image to maintain high level of security against any kind of attack. Gray images from the standard dataset (USC-SIPI) including Lena, Peppers, Baboon, and Cameraman are implemented for benchmarking. The results show good PSNR value with high capacity and these findings verified the worthiness of the proposed method. High complexities of pixels distribution and replacement of bits will ensure better security and robust imperceptibility compared to the existing systems in the literature

Review of steganalysis of digital images

Steganography is the science and art of embedding hidden messages into cover multimedia such as text, image, audio and video. Steganalysis is the counterpart of steganography, which wants to identify if there is data hidden inside a digital medium. In this study, some specific steganographic schemes such as HUGO and LSB are studied and the steganalytic schemes developed to steganalyze the hidden message are studied. Furthermore, some new approaches such as deep learning and game theory, which have seldom been utilized in steganalysis before, are studied. In the rest of thesis study some steganalytic schemes using textural features including the LDP and LTP have been implemented

Identification of LSB image Steganography using Cover Image Comparisons

Steganography has long been used to counter forensic investigation. This use of steganography as an anti-forensics technique is becoming more widespread. This requires forensic examiners to have additional tools to more effectively detect steganography. In this paper we introduce a new software concept specifically designed to allow the digital forensics professional to clearly identify and attribute instances of LSB image steganography by using the original cover image in side-by-side comparison with a suspected steganographic payload image. This technique is embodied in a software implementation named CounterSteg. The CounterSteg software allows detailed analysis and comparison of both the original cover image and any modified image, using sophisticated bit- and color-channel visual depiction graphics. In certain cases, the steganographic software used for message transmission can be identified by the forensic analysis of LSB and other changes in the payload image. This paper demonstrates usage and typical forensic analysis with eight commonly available steganographic programs. Future work will attempt to automate the typical types of analysis and detection. This is important, as currently there is a steep rise in the use of image LSB steganographic techniques to hide the payload code used by malware and viruses, and for the purposes of data exfiltration. This results because of the fact that the hidden code and/or data can more easily bypass virus and malware signature detection in such a manner as being surreptitiously hidden in an otherwise innocuous image file

Symmetric- Based Steganography Technique Using Spiral-Searching Method for HSV Color Images

إخفاء المعلومات يعني أخفاء المعلومات السرية في بعض الوسائط المختارة الأخرى دون ترك أي دليل واضح على تغيير ميزات الوسط الناقل. تخفي معظم طرق الاختباء التقليدية الرسالة مباشرةً في الوسائط الناقلة مثل (النص والصورة والصوت والفيديو). يترك بعض الاخفاء تأثيرًا سلبيًا على صورة الغلاف الناقلة، هذا التأثير السلبي يًمكن من اكتشاف التغير في والوسط الناقل من خلال الإنسان والآلة. الغرض من طريقة إخفاء المعلومات المقترحة هو ان جعل هذا التغيير غير قابل للكشف، يركز البحث الحالي على استخدام طريقة معقدة لمنع الكشف عن إخفاء المعلومات بواسطة الإنسان والآلة باعتماد على طريقة البحث اللولبي، تم استخدام مقاييس مؤشر التشابه الهيكلي للقياس للحصول على دقة وجودة الصورة المستردة وتم تحسين جودتها المدركة. تم حساب قيم مقاييس المعلومات من خلال التجارب العملية (الإدراك، المتانة، السعة) باستخدام تقنية الاستيفاء ومقاييس التشابه الهيكلي. تظهر النتائج التجريبية أن استخدام هذه المقاييس (PSNR و MSE و SSIM) قد حسن جودة الصورة بنسبة 87٪ وأنتج قيم PSNR (38-41 ديسيبل) و MSE = 0.6537 و SSIM = 0.8255. توضح النتائج أيضًا تقدمًا ملحوظًا في مجال إخفاء المعلومات وتزايد صعوبة اكتشافها من قِبل البشر والآلات.Steganography is defined as hiding confidential information in some other chosen media without leaving any clear evidence of changing the media's features. Most traditional hiding methods hide the message directly in the covered media like (text, image, audio, and video). Some hiding techniques leave a negative effect on the cover image, so sometimes the change in the carrier medium can be detected by human and machine. The purpose of suggesting hiding information is to make this change undetectable. The current research focuses on using complex method to prevent the detection of hiding information by human and machine based on spiral search method, the Structural Similarity Index Metrics measures are used to get the accuracy and quality of the retrieved image and to improve its perceived quality. The values of information measures are calculated through practical experiments of (perceptibility, robustness, capacity) by using interpolation technique and structural similarity measures. Experimental results show that the use of these measures (PSNR, MSE, and SSIM) has improved the image quality by 87% and has produced values of PSNR (38-41 dB), MSE = 0.6537 and SSIM= 0.8255. The results also demonstrate a remarkable progress in the field of hiding information and the increasing difficulty of detecting it by humans and machines

Information similarity metrics in information security and forensics

We study two information similarity measures, relative entropy and the similarity metric, and methods for estimating them. Relative entropy can be readily estimated with existing algorithms based on compression. The similarity metric, based on algorithmic complexity, proves to be more difficult to estimate due to the fact that algorithmic complexity itself is not computable. We again turn to compression for estimating the similarity metric. Previous studies rely on the compression ratio as an indicator for choosing compressors to estimate the similarity metric. This assumption, however, is fundamentally flawed. We propose a new method to benchmark compressors for estimating the similarity metric. To demonstrate its use, we propose to quantify the security of a stegosystem using the similarity metric. Unlike other measures of steganographic security, the similarity metric is not only a true distance metric, but it is also universal in the sense that it is asymptotically minimal among all computable metrics between two objects. Therefore, it accounts for all similarities between two objects. In contrast, relative entropy, a widely accepted steganographic security definition, only takes into consideration the statistical similarity between two random variables. As an application, we present a general method for benchmarking stegosystems. The method is general in the sense that it is not restricted to any covertext medium and therefore, can be applied to a wide range of stegosystems. For demonstration, we analyze several image stegosystems using the newly proposed similarity metric as the security metric. The results show the true security limits of stegosystems regardless of the chosen security metric or the existence of steganalysis detectors. In other words, this makes it possible to show that a stegosystem with a large similarity metric is inherently insecure, even if it has not yet been broken