A Survey on Image Steganography & its Techniques in Spatial & Frequency Domain

Steganography is an intelligent art of communicating in a way which hides the endurance of the communication. The image steganography technique takes the asset of confined power of visual system of human being. The art of hiding information such that it averts ferreting out of hidden messages is getting very popular nowadays, which is referred as Steganography. The word Steganography has been educed from the two Greek words - Steganos, which mean covered or secret and Graphy mean writing or drawing. There have been many techniques for hiding information or messages in images in such a manner that the modifications made to the image are perceptually undetected. This paper proposes the evaluation of a few techniques of the Image Steganography in spatial domain and frequency domain. The Image Steganography techniques in spatial domain that would be discussed are Least-Significant-Bit (LSB), LSB Replacement, LSB Matching, and Bit Plane Complexity Segmentation Steganography and frequency domain techniques to be conferred in this paper are Discrete Wavelet Transform (DWT), Discrete Cosine Transform (DCT), Discrete Fourier Transform (DFT) and Singular Valued Decomposition (SVD). Steganography technique is intended to be compared with the Watermarking Technique. DOI: 10.17762/ijritcc2321-8169.15027

Hiding data in images using steganography techniques with compression algorithms

Steganography is the science and art of secret communication between two sides that attempt to hide the content of the message. It is the science of embedding information into the cover image without causing a loss in the cover image after embedding.Steganography is the art and technology of writing hidden messages in such a manner that no person, apart from the sender and supposed recipient, suspects the lifestyles of the message. It is gaining huge attention these days as it does now not attract attention to its information's existence. In this paper, a comparison of two different techniques is given. The first technique used Least Significant Bit (LSB) with no encryption and no compression. In the second technique, the secret message is encrypted first then LSB technique is applied. Moreover, Discrete Cosine Transform (DCT) is used to transform the image into the frequency domain. The LSB algorithm is implemented in spatial domain in which the payload bits are inserted into the least significant bits of cover image to develop the stego-image while DCT algorithm is implemented in frequency domain in which the stego-image is transformed from spatial domain to the frequency domain and the payload bits are inserted into the frequency components of the cover image.The performance of these two techniques is evaluated on the basis of the parameters MSE and PSNR

Transparent authentication methodology in electronic education

In the context of on-line assessment in e-learning, a problem arises when a student taking an exam may wish to cheat by handing over personal credentials to someone else to take their place in an exam, Another problem is that there is no method for signing digital content as it is being produced in a computerized environment. Our proposed solution is to digitally sign the participant’s work by embedding voice samples in the transcript paper at regular intervals. In this investigation, we have demonstrated that a transparent stenographic methodology will provide an innovative and practical solution for achieving continuous authentication in an online educational environment by successful insertion and extraction of audio digital signatures

A Brief Review of RIDH

The Reversible image data hiding (RIDH) is one of the novel approaches in the security field. In the highly sensitive domains like Medical, Military, Research labs, it is important to recover the cover image successfully, Hence, without applying the normal steganography, we can use RIDH to get the better result. Reversible data hiding has a advantage over image data hiding that it can give you double security surely

Secure digital documents using Steganography and QR Code

This thesis was submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy and awarded by Brunel University LondonWith the increasing use of the Internet several problems have arisen regarding the processing of electronic documents. These include content filtering, content retrieval/search. Moreover, document security has taken a centre stage including copyright protection, broadcast monitoring etc. There is an acute need of an effective tool which can find the identity, location and the time when the document was created so that it can be determined whether or not the contents of the document were tampered with after creation. Owing the sensitivity of the large amounts of data which is processed on a daily basis, verifying the authenticity and integrity of a document is more important now than it ever was. Unsurprisingly document authenticity verification has become the centre of attention in the world of research. Consequently, this research is concerned with creating a tool which deals with the above problem. This research proposes the use of a Quick Response Code as a message carrier for Text Key-print. The Text Key-print is a novel method which employs the basic element of the language (i.e. Characters of the alphabet) in order to achieve authenticity of electronic documents through the transformation of its physical structure into a logical structured relationship. The resultant dimensional matrix is then converted into a binary stream and encapsulated with a serial number or URL inside a Quick response Code (QR code) to form a digital fingerprint mark. For hiding a QR code, two image steganography techniques were developed based upon the spatial and the transform domains. In the spatial domain, three methods were proposed and implemented based on the least significant bit insertion technique and the use of pseudorandom number generator to scatter the message into a set of arbitrary pixels. These methods utilise the three colour channels in the images based on the RGB model based in order to embed one, two or three bits per the eight bit channel which results in three different hiding capacities. The second technique is an adaptive approach in transforming domain where a threshold value is calculated under a predefined location for embedding in order to identify the embedding strength of the embedding technique. The quality of the generated stego images was evaluated using both objective (PSNR) and Subjective (DSCQS) methods to ensure the reliability of our proposed methods. The experimental results revealed that PSNR is not a strong indicator of the perceived stego image quality, but not a bad interpreter also of the actual quality of stego images. Since the visual difference between the cover and the stego image must be absolutely imperceptible to the human visual system, it was logically convenient to ask human observers with different qualifications and experience in the field of image processing to evaluate the perceived quality of the cover and the stego image. Thus, the subjective responses were analysed using statistical measurements to describe the distribution of the scores given by the assessors. Thus, the proposed scheme presents an alternative approach to protect digital documents rather than the traditional techniques of digital signature and watermarking

Information Hiding using LSB Technique based on Developed PSO Algorithm

Generally, The sending process of secret information via the transmission channel or any carrier medium is not secured. For this reason, the techniques of information hiding are needed. Therefore, steganography must take place before transmission. To embed a secret message at optimal positions of the cover image under spatial domain, using the developed particle swarm optimization algorithm (Dev.-PSO) to do that purpose in this paper based on Least Significant Bits (LSB) using LSB substitution. The main aim of (Dev. -PSO) algorithm is determining an optimal paths to reach a required goals in the specified search space based on disposal of them, using (Dev.-PSO) algorithm produces the paths of a required goals with most efficient and speed. An agents population is used in determining process of a required goals at search space for solving of problem. The (Dev.-PSO) algorithm is applied to different images; the number of an image which used in the experiments in this paper is three. For all used images, the Peak Signal to Noise Ratio (PSNR) value is computed. Finally, the PSNR value of the stego-A that obtained from blue sub-band colo is equal (44.87) dB, while the stego-B is equal (44.45) dB, and the PSNR value for the stego-C is (43.97)dB, while the vlue of MSE that obtained from the same color sub-bans is (0.00989), stego-B equal to (0.01869), and stego-C is (0.02041). Furthermore, our proposed method has ability to survive the quality for the stego image befor and after hiding stage or under intended attack that used in the existing paper such as Gaussian noise, and salt & pepper noise

A Robust Steganography method Using Adjustable Parameters

In this paper, a new steganography method based on contourlet transform is presented. Compared with the previous works, the proposed method causes far fewer distortions in high frequency coefficients. This significantly increases the quality of stegano image and extracted secret image and its robustness against to steganalysis algorithm. Furthermore, we proposed two adjustable parameters that could be suited in direction of changing the quality of stegano image and extracted secret images or its robustness against to attacks and steganalysis algorithms. Using these parameters, much better performance of storing data is accessible. The proposed algorithm has higher robustness against to steganalysis algorithm in comparison with related state of the art methods. Likewise, the experimental results show robustness respect to Gaussian noise and other attacks such as JPEG compression.DOI:http://dx.doi.org/10.11591/ijece.v3i2.223

Protecting Information with Subcodstanography

In modern communication systems, one of the most challenging tasks involves the implementation of adequate methods for successful and secure transfer of confidential digital information over an unsecured communication channel. Many encryption algorithms have been developed for protection of confidential information. However, over time, flaws have been discovered even with the most sophisticated encryption algorithms. Each encryption algorithm can be decrypted within sufficient time and with sufficient resources. The possibility of decryption has increased with the development of computer technology since available computer speeds enable the decryption process based on the exhaustive data search. This has led to the development of steganography, a science which attempts to hide the very existence of confidential information. However, the stenography also has its disadvantages, listed in the paper. Hence, a new method which combines the favourable properties of cryptography based on substitution encryption and stenography is analysed in the paper. The ability of hiding the existence of confidential information comes from steganography and its encryption using a coding table makes its content undecipherable. This synergy greatly improves protection of confidential information

Solving the threat of LSB steganography within data loss prevention systems

With the recent spate of data loss breaches from industry and commerce, especially with the large number of Advanced Persistent Threats, companies are increasing their network boundary security. As network defences are enhanced through the use of Data Loss Prevention systems (DLP), attackers seek new ways of exploiting and extracting confidential data. This is often done by internal parties in large-scale organisations through the use of steganography. The successful utilisation of steganography makes the exportation of confidential data hard to detect, equipped with the ability of escaping even the most sophisticated DLP systems. This thesis provides two effective solutions to prevent data loss from effective LSB image steganographic behaviour, with the potential to be applied in industrial DLP systems

Security of Streaming Media Communications with Logistic Map and Self-Adaptive Detection-Based Steganography

Voice over IP (VoIP) is finding its way into several applications, but its security concerns still remain. This paper shows how a new self-adaptive steganographic method can ensure the security of covert VoIP communications over the Internet. In this study an Active Voice Period Detection algorithm is devised for PCM codec to detect whether a VoIP packet carries active or inactive voice data, and the data embedding location in a VoIP stream is chosen randomly according to random sequences generated from a logistic chaotic map. The initial parameters of the chaotic map and the selection of where to embed the message are negotiated between the communicating parties. Steganography experiments on active and inactive voice periods were carried out using a VoIP communications system. Performance evaluation and security analysis indicates that the proposed VoIP steganographic scheme can withstand statistical detection, and achieve secure real-time covert communications with high speech quality and negligible signal distortion