Design of an Embedding Algorithm in Image Steganography

Abstract

Steganography is the art and science of hiding information which embeds hidden content into cover media so as not to provoke eavesdroppers suspicious activities. Steganography differs from cryptography in the sense that where cryptography focuses on keeping the contents of data secret while steganography focuses on keeping the existence of a data secret. Image steganography is the process of embedding of information into the cover image without degradation in the image and make the image robust so that users who do not have authorization with this information cannot access it. The approach is to implement new embedding technique for image steganography which is simple and this technique will use for all the file formats of an image. This embedding algorithm embeds the master image file size, type of encryption algorithm (DES or AES), compression ratio of secret file size, data of secret file size which is also encrypted using a secret key. The Deflate compression technique is also used to compressed secret file into the cover file. The secret message or another image file or a file can be embedded into a cover image which is also referred to as stego image. The proposed system maintains imperceptibility and data integrity property of steganography. The proposed method satisfies the reversibility property, imperceptibility, hidden capacity of data into cover image of steganography to reconstruct secret and cover images without any loss of information.