Security analysis of DNA based steganography techniques

Abstract

This study investigates the most recent data hiding techniques based on DNA steganography, including the highly improved DNA-based steganography technique, the data hiding using double DNA sequences method, and the enhanced DNA-based steganography technique. The strengths and weaknesses of these techniques are discussed. Additionally, the security of these techniques is analyzed based on several security parameters that measure the quality of DNA steganography with respect to many factors, including, but not limited to, cracking probability, blindness, modification rate and expansion rate, and layers of security. The goal of the comparison between the investigated techniques is to highlight the advantages and disadvantages of the existing data hiding algorithms and to motivate future research in this field. Moreover, the paper evaluates the discussed techniques based on some parameters, including capacity, payload, and bit per nucleotide (bpn). The result shows that the enhanced DNA-based steganography technique hides 2 bpn, whereas the highly improved method can hide on average 1.46 bpn, which is higher than data hiding using double DNA sequences method can hide .The paper also presents suggestions for how each technique can be optimized to to achieve a higher security level for hiding data within DNA sequences.