Image Steganography is a thriving research area of information security where secret data is embedded in images to hide its existence while getting the minimum possible statistical detectability. This paper proposes a novel magic least significant bit substitution method (M-LSB-SM) for RGB images. The proposed method is based on the achromatic component (I-plane) of the hue-saturation-intensity (HSI) color model and multi-level encryption (MLE) in the spatial domain. The input image is transposed and converted into an HSI color space. The I-plane is divided into four sub-images of equal size, rotating each sub-image with a different angle using a secret key. The secret information is divided into four blocks, which are then encrypted using an MLE algorithm (MLEA). Each sub-block of the message is embedded into one of the rotated sub-images based on a specific pattern using magic LSB substitution. Experimental results validate that the proposed method not only enhances the visual quality of stego images but also provides good imperceptibility and multiple security levels as compared to several existing prominent methods.

A novel magic LSB substitution method (M-LSB-SM) using multi-level encryption and achromatic component of an image

Steganography is a method of hiding secret messages in a cover object while communication takes place between sender and receiver. Security of confidential information has always been a major issue from the past times to the present time. It has always been the interested topic for researchers to develop secure techniques to send data without revealing it to anyone other than the receiver. Therefore from time to time researchers have developed many techniques to fulfill secure transfer of data and steganography is one of them. In this paper we have proposed a new technique of image steganography i.e. Hash-LSB with RSA algorithm for providing more security to data as well as our data hiding method. The proposed technique uses a hash function to generate a pattern for hiding data bits into LSB of RGB pixel values of the cover image. This technique makes sure that the message has been encrypted before hiding it into a cover image. If in any case the cipher text got revealed from the cover image, the intermediate person other than receiver can't access the message as it is in encrypted form.

A Secure Image Steganography Based on RSA Algorithm and Hash-LSB Technique

Security of information during transmission is a major issue in this modern era. All of the communicating bodies want confidentiality, integrity, and authenticity of their secret information. Researchers have presented various schemes to cope with these Internet security issues. In this context, both steganography and cryptography can be used effectively. However, major limitation in the existing steganographic methods is the low-quality output stego images, which consequently results in the lack of security. To cope with these issues, we present an efficient method for RGB images based on gray level modification (GLM) and multi-level encryption (MLE). The secret key and secret data is encrypted using MLE algorithm before mapping it to the grey-levels of the cover image. Then, a transposition function is applied on cover image prior to data hiding. The usage of transpose, secret key, MLE, and GLM adds four different levels of security to the proposed algorithm, making it very difficult for a malicious user to extract the original secret information. The proposed method is evaluated both quantitatively and qualitatively. The experimental results, compared with several state-of-the-art algorithms, show that the proposed algorithm not only enhances the quality of stego images but also provides multiple levels of security, which can significantly misguide image steganalysis and makes the attack on this algorithm more challenging.

A Secure Method for Color Image Steganography using Gray-Level Modification and Multi-level Encryption

In Steganography, the total message will be invisible into a cover media such as text, audio, video, and image in which attackers don't have any idea about the original message that the media contain and which algorithm use to embed or extract it. In this paper, the proposed technique has focused on Bitmap image as it is uncompressed and convenient than any other image format to implement LSB Steganography method. For better security AES cryptography technique has also been used in the proposed method. Before applying the Steganography technique, AES cryptography will change the secret message into cipher text to ensure two layer security of the message. In the proposed technique, a new Steganography technique is being developed to hide large data in Bitmap image using filtering based algorithm, which uses MSB bits for filtering purpose. This method uses the concept of status checking for insertion and retrieval of message. This method is an improvement of Least Significant Bit (LSB) method for hiding information in images. It is being predicted that the proposed method will able to hide large data in a single image retaining the advantages and discarding the disadvantages of the traditional LSB method. Various sizes of data are stored inside the images and the PSNR are also calculated for each of the images tested. Based on the PSNR value, the Stego image has higher PSNR value as compared to other method. Hence the proposed Steganography technique is very efficient to hide the secret information inside an image.

An efficient filtering based approach improving LSB image steganography using status bit along with AES cryptography

This paper introduces a best approach for Least Significant Bit (LSB) based on image steganography that enhances the existing LSB substitution techniques to improve the security level of hidden information. It is a new approach to substitute LSB of RGB true color image. The new security conception hides secret information within the LSB of image where a secret key encrypts the hidden information to protect it from unauthorized users. In general, in LSB methods, hidden information is stored into a specific position of LSB of image. For this reason, knowing the retrieval methods, anyone can extract the hidden information. In our paper, hidden information is stored into different position of LSB of image depending on the secret key. As a result, it is difficult to extract the hidden information knowing the retrieval methods. We have used the Peak Signal-to-Noise Ratio (PSNR) to measure the quality of the stego images. The value of PSNR gives better result because our proposed method changes very small number of bits of the image. The obtained results show that the proposed method results in LSB based image steganography using secret key which provides good security issue and PSNR value than general LSB based image steganography methods.

Md. Ismail Hossain

Papers

A new approach for LSB based image steganography using secret key