A Robust Method for Encrypted Data Hiding Technique Based on Neighborhood Pixels Information

Authors: Ali Shariq Imran, M. Younus Javed, Naveed Sarfraz Khattak

Abstract:

This paper presents a novel method for data hiding based on neighborhood pixels information to calculate the number of bits that can be used for substitution and modified Least Significant Bits technique for data embedding. The modified solution is independent of the nature of the data to be hidden and gives correct results along with un-noticeable image degradation. The technique, to find the number of bits that can be used for data hiding, uses the green component of the image as it is less sensitive to human eye and thus it is totally impossible for human eye to predict whether the image is encrypted or not. The application further encrypts the data using a custom designed algorithm before embedding bits into image for further security. The overall process consists of three main modules namely embedding, encryption and extraction cm.

Keywords: Data hiding, image processing, information security, stagonography.

Digital Object Identifier (DOI): doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.1062306

References:

[1] Suk-Ling Li, Kai-Chi Leung, L.M. Cheng, Chi-Kwong Chan. "Data hiding in Images by Adaptive LSB Substitution Based on The Pixel- Value Differencing", 2006.
[2] K.M. Whelan, G.C.M. Silvestre, N.J. Hurley, "Iterative Decoding of Scale Invariant Image Data-Hiding", 2005.
[3] Chang, C.C., Tseng, H.-W., "A steganographic method for digital images using side match" Pattern Recognition Lett. 25, 1431-1437, 2004.
[4] Kaushal Solanki, Noah Jacobsen, "Robust Image-Adaptive Data Hiding Using Erasure and Error Correction", Dec 2004.
[5] Chan, C.K., Cheng, L.M., "Hiding data in images by simple LSB substitution", Pattern Recognition 37, 469-474, 2004.
[6] K. Solanki, O. Dabeer, B. S. Manjunath, U. Madhow, and S. Chandrasekaran, "A joint source-channel coding scheme for image-inimage data hiding," in Proc. Int. Conf. Image Processing, Barcelona, Spain, Sept. 2003.
[7] Yang Zhao, Patrizio, "Dual Domain Watermarking for Authentication and Compression of Cultural Heritage Image". March 2004.
[8] Chang, C.C., Lin, M.H., Hu, Y.-C., "A fast and secure image hiding scheme based on LSB substitution", Int. Journal of Pattern Recognit. And Artif. Intell. 16 (4), 399-416, 2002.