Encrypted Secret Data Research Articles

Fortifying Data Availability and Security in Cloud Servers Via Verification Protocols

Distributed computing networks play a significant role in contemporary computer architecture, facilitating the processing, analysis, and storage of sensitive data. This issue has garnered significant interest in the realm of investigating various encryption techniques. There is a pressing need to establish a dependable and validated security approach that enhances the data-processing efficacy of Cloud servers, as current cryptographic investigations suggest the vulnerability of server-side data security to potential breaches. This paper elucidates the process of implementing a cloud-centric cloud storage architecture and presents a unique security schema that validates the evidence of encrypted secret data storage. The researchers in this paper propose a novel computational security technique to tackle the issue of internal nodes by using efficient security strategies, hence minimizing computational overhead. The experimental results reported in this paper provide evidence of the greater effectiveness of the suggested mechanism in comparison to other commonly used security strategies.

Secure Reversible Data Hiding in Images Based on Linear Prediction and Bit-Plane Slicing

Reversible Data Hiding (RDH) should be secured as per requirements to protect content in open environments such as the cloud and internet. Integrity and undetectability of steganographic images are amongst the main concerns in any RDH scheme. As steganographic encryption using linear prediction over bit-planes is challenging, so the security and embedding capacity of the existing RDH techniques could not be adequate. Therefore, a new steganographic technique is proposed which provides better security, higher embedding capacity and visual quality to the RDH scheme. In this technique, the cover image is divided into n-bit planes (nBPs) and linear prediction is applied to it. Next, the histogram of the residual nBPs image is taken, and secret data bits are encrypted using the RC4 cryptographic algorithm. To embed the encrypted secret data bits, the histogram shifting process is applied. This is achieved by using peak and zero pairs of residual nBPs images. This scheme provides security to the cover image and hidden data. The proposed RDH scheme is capable of extracting the embedded secret data accurately and recovering the original cover or residual nBPs image.

Enhancing Steganography by Image Segmentation and Multi-level Deep Hiding

In this paper, we present Modify Deep Hiding Extraction Algorithm (MDHEA) that is a steganography algorithm with Multi-Level Steganography (MLS) and color image segmentation. Through experimental results, MDHEA shows improvement in the results of previous works by securing encrypted secret data against attacks. We use segmentation to choose the appropriate segment, pass it on the cover image, calculate the value of the change at the pixel of the segment and select the best segment and its location in the cover image based on the least effect. MDHEA applies multi-level steganography to hide the confidential data in color images to ensure the integrity of the hidden data and obtain the largest volume of hidden data without distorting the image of the stego image. To reduce distortion in the cover image due to hiding a large amount of secret data and obtaining a high-quality stego image after hiding the secret data, we implement the Blue Smoothing Algorithm (BSA) to achieve smoothing the largest possible number of pixels in the image.

Enhancing Steganography by Image Segmentation and Multi-level Deep Hiding

In this paper, we present Modify Deep Hiding Extraction Algorithm (MDHEA) that is a steganography algorithm with Multi-Level Steganography (MLS) and color image segmentation. Through experimental results, MDHEA shows improvement in the results of previous works by securing encrypted secret data against attacks. We use segmentation to choose the appropriate segment, pass it on the cover image, calculate the value of the change at the pixel of the segment and select the best segment and its location in the cover image based on the least effect. MDHEA applies multi-level steganography to hide the confidential data in color images to ensure the integrity of the hidden data and obtain the largest volume of hidden data without distorting the image of the stego image. To reduce distortion in the cover image due to hiding a large amount of secret data and obtaining a high-quality stego image after hiding the secret data, we implement the Blue Smoothing Algorithm (BSA) to achieve smoothing the largest possible number of pixels in the image.

Novel Secure Hybrid Image Steganography Technique Based on Pattern Matching

The secure communication of information is a major concern over the internet. The information must be protected before transmitting over a communication channel to avoid security violations. In this paper, a new hybrid method called compressed encrypted data embedding (CEDE) is proposed. In CEDE, the secret information is first compressed with Lempel Ziv Welch (LZW) compression algorithm. Then, the compressed secret information is encrypted using the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) symmetric block cipher. In the last step, the encrypted information is embedded into an image of size 512 × 512 pixels by using image steganography. In the steganographic technique, the compressed and encrypted secret data bits are divided into pairs of two bits and pixels of the cover image are also arranged in four pairs. The four pairs of secret data are compared with the respective four pairs of each cover pixel which leads to sixteen possibilities of matching in between secret data pairs and pairs of cover pixels. The least significant bits (LSBs) of current and imminent pixels are modified according to the matching case number. The proposed technique provides double-folded security and the results show that stego image carries a high capacity of secret data with adequate peak signal to noise ratio (PSNR) and lower mean square error (MSE) when compared with existing methods in the literature.

Data Hiding in Symmetric Circular String Art

Creative digital artwork is usually the outcome of a long period of intellectual creation and labor of an artist. Similarly, computer-created digital artwork is an outcome of a large amount of machine time and computational resources. However, such intellectual properties can be easily copied by illegal users. Copyright protection of digital art is increasingly more important than before. Recently, using a computational approach to generate string art tends to be popular and attractive. To protect the illegal usage of the digital form of string art, we propose a data hiding algorithm specifically designed for string art. A digital string art image consists of a sequence of string lines, each specified by two nails fixed at the two ends of that line. The encrypted secret data (the watermark) is embedded into the list of line segments by odd–even modulation, where a bit ‘1’ is embedded by forcing the next node to be an odd node, and a bit ‘0’ is embedded by forcing the next node to be an even node. To minimize the impact of data embedding on the quality of the original string art image, a local optimization algorithm is developed to select the nodes that produce minimal distortion. To quantify the embedding distortion, we introduce a smoothing filter model for the human vision system (HVS) specifically tailored to string art image. Experimental results show that using the proposed algorithm, the distortion between the original string art image and the watermarked string art image is unnoticeable. The modified string art image is statistically indistinguishable from the original string art, and hence is secure under steganalysis. To our best knowledge, this is the first work towards data hiding and copyright protection of digital string art.

Robust approach of video steganography using combined keypoints detection algorithm against geometrical and signal processing attacks

To secure the secret communication, a robust video steganography algorithm is proposed. The major objectives of the proposed method (PM) are: (1) perceiving the region of interest (ROI) keypoints’ locations in video frames for concealing the secret data and (2) determining the appropriate amount of data to be embedded into the perceived ROI keypoints’ region. In the PM, keypoints are initially extracted from each video frame using scale-invariant feature transform (SIFT) and a speeded-up robust features (SURF) descriptor against a set of predefined geometrical and signal processing attacks. Next, ROI keypoints are generated by comparing the SIFT and SURF keypoint descriptors of the original frame and attacked versions of the frame. Then ROI keypoints are divided into four least significant bit (LSB) groups to determine the embedding capacity of each ROI keypoint. Subsequently, the secret data are encrypted using a symmetric key-based shift cipher to provide an additional security layer for secret communication. Finally, the encrypted secret data have been embedded into the ROI keypoints using the LSB substitution method based on the four LSB groups’ values. The PM is tested on 22 standard benchmark videos. The efficiency of the PM is evaluated in terms of the perceptual invisibility, robustness, and concealing capacity. From experimental results, it is observed that the PM outperforms contemporary methods by attaining significant outcomes.

Image and AES Inspired Hex Symbols Steganography (IAIS) for Anti-Forensic Artifacts

Technology (including mobiles and computers) has become a basic, indispensable need in our daily life. With an initial purpose of achieving basic functions such as communication, technology has evolved into a virtual gate to the whole world connecting individuals through social media and various websites and applications. Most importantly, technology became the reservoir of our personal information and important, sensitive data. This has led to increased risks of security breaches and data thefts demanding countermeasure approaches. One of these approaches is Steganography. Steganography is a data hiding approach that allows for invisible, relatively safe communication. Several forms of steganography have been developed, among which are Image steganography and our previously developed AES Inspired Steganography. In this paper we propose a new variation in which we combine both of these approaches, Image and AES Inspired Steganography (IAIS). This approach proposes hiding the hex symbol format of the encrypted secret data into a carrier image file. The image file is converted to a hexadecimal representation in which the hex symbol could be embedded without applying any noticeable changes to the original image. Deciphering the hidden information requires secret keys agreed upon by the communicating parties confidentially. These carrier files can be exchanged among mobile devices and/or computers. Comparisons between the original cover images and the cover images with the hidden text have shown that no changes occurred in the colour histogram of the images. However, the noise test has shown that exposure to noise can affect the hexadecimal content of the image, hence the embedded hex symbol representation of the secret text.

Stego on FPGA: an IWT approach.

A reconfigurable hardware architecture for the implementation of integer wavelet transform (IWT) based adaptive random image steganography algorithm is proposed. The Haar-IWT was used to separate the subbands namely, LL, LH, HL, and HH, from 8 × 8 pixel blocks and the encrypted secret data is hidden in the LH, HL, and HH blocks using Moore and Hilbert space filling curve (SFC) scan patterns. Either Moore or Hilbert SFC was chosen for hiding the encrypted data in LH, HL, and HH coefficients, whichever produces the lowest mean square error (MSE) and the highest peak signal-to-noise ratio (PSNR). The fixated random walk's verdict of all blocks is registered which is nothing but the furtive key. Our system took 1.6 µs for embedding the data in coefficient blocks and consumed 34% of the logic elements, 22% of the dedicated logic register, and 2% of the embedded multiplier on Cyclone II field programmable gate array (FPGA).

A novel methodology for data hiding in Microsoft Word file

In the current business world, Word processors, Excel spread sheets and PowerPoint presentations have become extremely useful tools. Nowadays, electronic devises like iphone, pda, pmp, etc. are providing facilities like editing the Word documents, creating Excel sheets, or making power point presentations. Microsoft compound document uses opaque formats like Microsoft Compound Document File Format that may contain undisclosed data. So, these files may play a very vital role for secure communication. Very few researchers have developed methods for data hiding in the Microsoft Word document and that are also of low embedding characteristics. In this work, we have developed two techniques. The first technique searches insignificant areas without changing the format of the file and it conceals reasonable amount of encrypted secret data. The next technique is useful for storing voluminous encrypted secret data without disturbing any format, features or characteristics of the file. Due to these properties, both techniques undoubtedly will be helpful in the corporate sector, defence and national security system. The practical implementation of this has been done on Microsoft platform.

A Novel Methodology for Data Hiding in PDF Files

ABSTRACT Portable Document Format (PDF) is a file format developed by Adobe Systems for representing documents in a manner that is independent of the original application software, hardware, and operating system. A PDF file can describe documents containing any combination of text, graphics, and images in a device independent and/or resolution independent format. It is now used everywhere across academic, technical, and governmental institutions. For secure communication, this platform and hardware independent file can be used as a secure cover media for voluminous data concealing. The methods develop so far for data hiding in PDF files satisfy low-embedding characteristics. In this work, we have developed two techniques. The first searches trash spaces in the PDF file and replaces them with the encrypted secret data. The second technique is useful for storing voluminous encrypted secret data without disturbing any format, features, or characteristics of the file. The practical implementation of this has been done on Microsoft platform. Experimental results show the feasibility of the proposed techniques.