AN IMAGE STEGANOGRAPHIC TECHNIQUE USING MORE COVER IMAGES TO EMBED THE SOURCE IMAGE DATA RANDOMLY AT 2-LSB’S OF STEGO IMAGES

  • Unique Paper ID: 166542
  • Volume: 11
  • Issue: 2
  • PageNo: 1253-1260
  • Abstract:
  • In the recent digital era of business operations, it requires to give importance for the data in transmission. Information security is a branch of computer science and engineering which provides security for the data under transmission through various channels. Information security can be provided by using the techniques like either cryptography or steganography. Cryptography deals within formation security where the plain text converted into cipher text using encryption algorithm with the help of key. It alters the structure of the secret message. At receiver end again it convert the Cipher text back in to plain text, using the decryption algorithm along with the key. Steganography is a branch of information security, which is useful to embed the data in a cover file without altering the structure of the cover file.. This carrier/cover file may be of text, audio, video, image or any important information in any format. After embedding the secret information on cover file, that file was identified as stego file. If the information bits are embedded on any image file, that process is called as Image Steganography [1]. An Image is a combination of horizontal and vertical pixels. There are basically two types of images are used in image steganography called (1) Gray scale images (2) Color images. Most of the Cryptographic techniques were commonly known by all but the present strong algorithms are resistant to attack and very high computing power is required to crack the data. But at the other side efficient Steganalysis system are designed to crack the steganographic process. Hence, Steganographic techniques still need to improve for certain formats. The main advantage of Steganography over Cryptography is that, the Steganography prevents the discovery of the very existence of secret data in the communication [3]. In this proposed image steganographic technique, more cover image files were used to embed the data of source image. The sequence of bits that were embedded at 2-LSB positions of the cover images are selected by the user and they vary as per the sequence selection randomly by the user at sender side. At the receiver side, it is required to gather all the stego images, so as to recollect back the data bits of source image. At the receiver end, receiver side steganographic algorithm used along with the key (which recollects the sequence of bits embedded) to regenerate the cover image. It is also required to use the same sequence selection at the receiver end, which is made at sender side as randomly. In this novel Steganographic method source image bits are embedded in more stego images and the sequence of bits embedded are also random, which depends on the sender side user selection. Hence this technique is more secured and robust, as any powerful steganalysis technique cannot detect the cover image by using any or all stego images without a key. The key transferred from sender to receiver by using any powerful cryptographic technique or by using any secret media, so as to improve the security level of the proposed algorithm.

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