Imperceptible Image Steganography Technique Using a Novel PIT-Based Technique

Abstract

The rapid increase in Internet speed led to people exchanging a huge amount of information every moment, including sensitive and private information. Hence, confidentiality and privacy are a big concern. Image steganography is a tool used to ensure that sensitive information is securely shared by concealing it in a cover image. Many techniques have been proposed to protect the information, such as the Least Significant Bit (LSB), Pixel Value Differencing (PVD), Pixel Indicator Techniques (PIT), etc. This paper presents a new PIT -based technique for RGB images to enhance the requirement ofimperceptibility and security. This technique uses the LSB of the green channel as an indicator to hide and encode the secret information in the red and blue channels. The technique is developed in three versions wherein two LSBs, two to four LSBs, or four LSBs of the red and blue channels are utilised to encode up to six bits of the secret information. The experimental results of the proposed method are obtained using MATLAB 2022a. The experimental results showed promising results against standard images with higher Peak Signal-to-Noise Ratio (PSNR) values and Mean Square Error (MSE).