A Study on Improved JPEG Steganography Algorithm to Prevent Steganalysis

Abstract

Video steganography is a data-hiding technology that inserts confidential messages intended to be hidden in video data at an unrecognizable level. Image steganography can be divided into spatial area techniques for inserting confidential data by manipulating the Last Significant Bit (LSB) of each image pixel and frequency domain techniques for manipulating the DCT (Discrete Cosine Transform) coefficients of images. JPEG (Joint Photographic Experts Group), which is used as the image loss compression standard, uses JPEG steganography techniques such as Jsteg, F3, F4, and F5 based on frequency domain techniques that manipulate DCT coefficients. Each technique has the characteristic that the frequency of DCT coefficient of 0 increases compared to the original. Various techniques are presented to determine JPEG Stego images by machine learning the characteristics of the relationship between image complexity and frequency of DCT coefficient 0. Therefore, this paper proposes a JPEG steganography algorithm to prevent the determination of the Stego image using DCT coefficient 0 and maintain an even coefficient distribution based on the JPEG characteristic, DCT coefficient 0.