Enhanced Least Significant Bit Replacement Algorithm in Spatial Domain of Steganography Using Character Sequence Optimization

C. Kavitha,Jagan Raj Jayapandiyan,K. Sakthivel

doi:10.1109/access.2020.3009234

C. Kavitha, Jagan Raj Jayapandiyan + Show 1 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1109/access.2020.3009234

Copy DOI

Journal: IEEE Access	Publication Date: Jan 1, 2020
Citations: 33	License type: CC BY 4.0

Affiliation: Thiruvalluvar University, Periyar University

Abstract

Text Steganography has become a dominant research field in information sharing domain and many researches are being conducted to strengthen this area. Researches around the amount of secret message that could be stored in a given cover image is always critical for any steganography technique used to share the secret text. This research paper proposes an enhanced Least Significant Bit (eLSB) embedding technique in steganography, through which the quality of cover image is improved, when compared to typical LSB algorithm used in steganography. The proposed method employs in spatial domain and it does the secret message encoding in two phases. The first phase generates the metadata and embeds the header information in first few bytes of cover image and then the following phase takes care of processing secret message and storing the secret message in cover image using an optimized way, which is possible through analyzing secret text’s character sequences. Proposed work results into occupying lesser space for the given secret text in cover image and hence leads to the better stego image quality than existing LSB algorithms. As the algorithm works on optimizing secret message during embedding phase itself, this technique enables high capacity embedding rate, additional security due to secret message preprocessing and enhanced cover image quality. The results are compared with LSB algorithm and compared to Peak Signal to Noise Ratio (PSNR), Mean Square Error (MSE) and Root Mean Square Error (RMSE) values to prove the proposed algorithm performs better on secret text embedding in cover image.

Highlights

Steganography is one of the branches in information hiding [1], which is used for concealed communication
Are few enhanced or redefined least significant bits (LSB) algorithms are available, this technique focuses on embedding part of the steganography process and led to reduction of number of bits used in the cover-image for storing secret message
Embedding algorithm generates a header (H) on the meta data of secret message and embers into first 64 bytes of coverage. This meta data contains information like length of the secret text, k value for the embedding in each LSB etc., Once the character substitution has completed, the embedding process stores the optimized secret message’s binary data into the least significant bits (LSB) of cover image based on the k value, k defines the number of least significant bits to be used in each byte of the colour values associated to a pixel (5)

Summary

INTRODUCTION

Steganography is one of the branches in information hiding [1], which is used for concealed communication. This technique embeds secret message into an any other cover medium such as text, document, image, audio, and video file formats [2]–[7]. As one of its branches, steganography is to hide the very existence of a secret message in the clandestine communication. As an effectively complementary technology to Cryptography, steganography has drawn tremendous attention of researchers in the recent years. The science of hiding information in plain sight is called steganography. This technique is called as ‘‘covered writing’’. Jayapandiyan et al.: eLSB Replacement Algorithm in Spatial Domain of Steganography

TYPES OF STEGANOGRAPHY

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

CONCLUSION