Abstract
Over the years, Steganography and Cryptography have been complementary techniques for enforcing security of digital data. The need for the development of robust multi-layered schemes to counter the exponential grow in the power of computing devices that can compromise security is critical in the design and implementation of security systems. Therefore, we propose a new combined steganographic and cryptographic scheme using the operators of genetic algorithm (GA) such selection, crossover and mutation, and some properties of the residue number system (RNS) with an appropriate fusing technique in order to embed encrypted text within images. The proposed scheme was tested using MatLab <sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">®</sup> R2017b and a CORE™i7 processor. Simulation results show that the proposed scheme can be deployed at one level with only the stego image containing the encrypted hidden message and at another level where the stego message is further encrypted. An analysis based on standard key metrics such as visual perception and statistical methods on steganalysis and cryptanalysis show that the proposed scheme is robust, is not complex with reduced runtime and will consume less power due to the use of residue numbers when compared to similar existing schemes.
Highlights
Data security has become a critical issue lately as the result of the emergence of digital computing as it is possible for ill-minded persons within the corridors of an organisation or on the line of communication to gain an unauthorised access in some instances or eavesdrop in some other instances on vital information that ought to be kept secret
Computer security systems including those using the science of cryptography and steganography have been developed over the years with different number of keys, and levels of encryption/encoding
The main contributions of the paper are outlined below: (i) A multi-layer data encryption and decryption scheme that uses the science of steganography and cryptography is proposed and developed. (ii) The operators of genetic algorithm (GA) such as selection, crossover and mutation are leveraged on at different levels of encoding and decoding in order to build a secure and robust data encryption and decryption scheme. (iii) The desirable features of residue number system (RNS) such as residues and parallelism together with a fusing criteria to embed text within images are employed to further enhance the security, robustness and the throughput of the scheme. (iv) We experimentally demonstrated the feasibility of the scheme in securing data en route an open channel, e.g. the Internet
Summary
Data security has become a critical issue lately as the result of the emergence of digital computing as it is possible for ill-minded persons within the corridors of an organisation or on the line of communication to gain an unauthorised access in some instances or eavesdrop in some other instances on vital information that ought to be kept secret These intruders have devised sophisticated methods, which include computational, subjective or statistical in order to bypass the existing security systems. The main contributions of the paper are outlined below: (i) A multi-layer data encryption and decryption scheme that uses the science of steganography and cryptography is proposed and developed. (ii) The operators of GA such as selection, crossover and mutation are leveraged on at different levels of encoding and decoding in order to build a secure and robust data encryption and decryption scheme.
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