Hiding Secret Data Using Image Steganography

Abstract

Today’s large demand of internet applications requires data to be transmitted in a secure manner. Data transmission in public communication system is not secure because of interception and improper manipulation by eavesdropper. So, the attractive solution for this problem is Steganography, which is the art and science of writing hidden messages in such a way that no one, apart from the sender and intend recipient, suspects the existence of the message, a form of security through obscurity. Hiding Secret Data Using Image Steganography is the scheme of hiding the existence of secret information by concealing it into another medium such as image file. In this paper we mainly discuss different types of image steganographic methods, advantages and disadvantages. We focus in this paper on Hiding Secret Data Using Image Steganography, which has emerged as a prominent source of data hiding across novel telecommunication technologies such as covered voice-over-IP, audio conferencing, etc. The multitude of steganographic criteria has led to a great diversity in these system design techniques. In this paper, we review current digital image steganographic techniques and we evaluate their performance based on robustness, security and hiding capacity indicators. The primary goal of steganography is to reliably send hidden information secretly, not merely to obscure its presence. Steganography in today’s computer era is considered a sub-discipline of data communication security domain. Lately, new directions based on steganographic approaches started to emerge to ensure data secrecy. Rather than as a substitute to existing solutions, these approaches could achieve better data secrecy if combined with conventional security techniques. Modern techniques of steganography exploit the characteristics of digital media by utilizing them as carriers (covers) to hold hidden information.