Signal Processing Attacks Research Articles

Maximum Error Insertion (MEI): A Novel Benchmarking Method for Data Hiding Algorithms

Data hiding is becoming increasingly important due to the growing threat to the privacy and security of data from intruders and hackers. This situation is accompanied by the advancement in artificial intelligence applications designed to reveal hidden data, making it difficult to choose the most appropriate hiding approach from those presented in literature. The benchmarking method serves as an important roadmap for making decisions. We propose a distinct plain benchmarking method called maximum error insertion (MEI) benchmarking. This approach intends to hide data using maximum error insertion. The MEI refers to the maximum amount of distortion that can be added to host data (such as image or audio) while still ensuring the successful retrieval of hidden data. The maximum error that can be generated by each hiding algorithm is intentionally inserted to the media file, thus giving us maximum error, maximum capacity, and maximum sensitivity to signal processing attacks. Investigation of the two hiding algorithms demonstrates their applicability and precision, and their implementation significantly enhances the reliability of results during the benchmarking stage.

Hiding Full-Color Images into Audio with Visual Enhancement via Residual Networks

Watermarking is a viable approach for safeguarding the proprietary rights of digital media. This study introduces an innovative fast Fourier transform (FFT)-based phase modulation (PM) scheme that facilitates efficient and effective blind audio watermarking at a remarkable rate of 508.85 numeric values per second while still retaining the original quality. Such a payload capacity makes it possible to embed a full-color image of 64 × 64 pixels within an audio signal of just 24.15 s. To bolster the security of watermark images, we have also implemented the Arnold transform in conjunction with chaotic encryption. Our comprehensive analysis and evaluation confirm that the proposed FFT–PM scheme exhibits exceptional imperceptibility, rendering the hidden watermark virtually undetectable. Additionally, the FFT–PM scheme shows impressive robustness against common signal-processing attacks. To further enhance the visual rendition of the recovered color watermarks, we propose using residual neural networks to perform image denoising and super-resolution reconstruction after retrieving the watermarks. The utilization of the residual networks contributes to noticeable improvements in perceptual quality, resulting in higher levels of zero-normalized cross-correlation in cases where the watermarks are severely damaged.

Physical Layer Authenticated Image Encryption for IoT Network Based on Biometric Chaotic Signature for MPFrFT OFDM System.

In this paper, a new physical layer authenticated encryption (PLAE) scheme based on the multi-parameter fractional Fourier transform-Orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (MP-FrFT-OFDM) is suggested for secure image transmission over the IoT network. In addition, a new robust multi-cascaded chaotic modular fractional sine map (MCC-MF sine map) is designed and analyzed. Also, a new dynamic chaotic biometric signature (DCBS) generator based on combining the biometric signature and the proposed MCC-MF sine map random chaotic sequence output is also designed. The final output of the proposed DCBS generator is used as a dynamic secret key for the MPFrFT OFDM system in which the encryption process is applied in the frequency domain. The proposed DCBS secret key generator generates a very large key space of 22200. The proposed DCBS secret keys generator can achieve the confidentiality and authentication properties. Statistical analysis, differential analysis and a key sensitivity test are performed to estimate the security strengths of the proposed DCBS-MP-FrFT-OFDM cryptosystem over the IoT network. The experimental results show that the proposed DCBS-MP-FrFT-OFDM cryptosystem is robust against common signal processing attacks and provides a high security level for image encryption application.

HADES: Hash-Based Audio Copy Detection System for Copyright Protection in Decentralized Music Sharing

Preventive measures to stop copyright infringement are yet to be implemented on current decentralized music-sharing platforms. There is no mechanism to reject modified audio before they go online, so some decentralized music platforms become places full of pirated audio files. To address this problem, a perceptual hash-based audio detection method for copyright protection in decentralized music sharing was proposed. Chromaprint, an open-source audio fingerprint program, generates a hash value to detect copyright infringement. To assess the perceptual hash technique’s robustness, Chromaprint generates a hash value from an audio file that can be modified with several signal processing attacks. The results of the detection system show that Chromaprint is very effective at spotting copyright infringement, with an average match rate of 92.64%. Deployed using a public Ethereum blockchain test network, the execution time from hashing to uploading to the IPFS distributed storage is only 616.3 ms.

Authenticated Public Key Elliptic Curve Based on Deep Convolutional Neural Network for Cybersecurity Image Encryption Application.

The demand for cybersecurity is growing to safeguard information flow and enhance data privacy. This essay suggests a novel authenticated public key elliptic curve based on a deep convolutional neural network (APK-EC-DCNN) for cybersecurity image encryption application. The public key elliptic curve discrete logarithmic problem (EC-DLP) is used for elliptic curve Diffie-Hellman key exchange (EC-DHKE) in order to generate a shared session key, which is used as the chaotic system's beginning conditions and control parameters. In addition, the authenticity and confidentiality can be archived based on ECC to share the EC parameters between two parties by using the EC-DHKE algorithm. Moreover, the 3D Quantum Chaotic Logistic Map (3D QCLM) has an extremely chaotic behavior of the bifurcation diagram and high Lyapunov exponent, which can be used in high-level security. In addition, in order to achieve the authentication property, the secure hash function uses the output sequence of the DCNN and the output sequence of the 3D QCLM in the proposed authenticated expansion diffusion matrix (AEDM). Finally, partial frequency domain encryption (PFDE) technique is achieved by using the discrete wavelet transform in order to satisfy the robustness and fast encryption process. Simulation results and security analysis demonstrate that the proposed encryption algorithm achieved the performance of the state-of-the-art techniques in terms of quality, security, and robustness against noise- and signal-processing attacks.

Multi-image Feature Map-Based Watermarking Techniques Using Transformer

Nowadays, protecting multimedia data is a significant challenge because of the advancement of technology and software. The embedding process heavily relies on watermarking to accomplish multimedia security in terms of content authentication, proof of ownership, and tamper detection. Our objective is to develop an invariant watermark that can survive different signal-processing attacks. We presented a unique hybrid technique (DWT-QR-SWT) and multi-image invariant features generated as a watermark using a Transformer encoder-decoder model. The encoded image features are subsampled using PCA in order to decrease the dimensionality of the watermark image. The first two images are used as watermark1 and the next two images as watermark2 to produce multi-watermark feature maps. To embed the watermark, a hybrid DWT-QR decomposition has been applied to the original image1. On the primary watermarked image, two Level Stationary Wavelet Transform (SWT) were applied to embed the secondary watermark2. At the extraction phase, the tampered image is recovered by passing the extracted watermark image as input to the transformer decoder. A multi-image watermark increases data embedding capabilities and also achieves two-level content authentication, tamper detection, localization, and recovery. With a PSNR of 59.05 dB, the testing result demonstrates great resilience and improved imperceptibility.

Adaptive and blind audio watermarking algorithm based on dither modulation and butterfly optimization algorithm.

How to improve the robustness to resist attacks and how to adaptively match the key parameters of the watermarking algorithm with the performance requirements to achieve the best performance in different applications are two hot issues in the research of audio watermarking algorithms. An adaptive and blind audio watermarking algorithm based on dither modulation and butterfly optimization algorithm (BOA) is proposed. Based on the convolution operation, a stable feature is designed to carry the watermark, which will improve the robustness by means of the stability of this feature to prevent the watermark loss. Blind extraction will be achieved only by comparing the feature value and the quantized value without the original audio. The BOA is used to optimize the key parameters of the algorithm which can be matched with the performance requirements by coding the population and constructing the fitness function. Experimental results confirm that this proposed algorithm can adaptively search for the optimal key parameters that match the performance requirements. Compared with other related algorithms in recent years, it exhibits strong robustness against various signal processing attacks and synchronization attacks.

SSVS-SSVD Based Desynchronization Attacks Resilient Watermarking Method for Stereo Signals

Most of the audio signals in real-world applications are stereo signals. However, the previous desynchronization attacks resilient watermarking methods cannot preserve perceptual quality or achieve robustness when constrained by high embedding rates and stereo host. In this paper, based on two novel features segmental singular values summation (SSVS) and segmental singular values difference (SSVD) that are generated using discrete cosine transform (DCT) and singular value decomposition (SVD), we present a robust watermarking method for stereo signals that not only is robust to desynchronization attacks and common signal processing attacks but also has a larger embedding rate compared with the previous methods. In the proposed method, we first apply DCT and SVD on each segment of the host signal to extract the SSVS feature and the SSVD feature. Then we generate the adaptive embedding parameters and embed watermark bits via optimized embedding strategies based on these features. Due to the use of the adaptive embedding parameters and the optimized embedding strategies, the proposed method significantly increases the embedding rate without compromising the robustness and perceptual quality. Analysis results show our proposed method outperforms the state-of-the-art methods by a large margin, where the perceptual quality improvement is over 14%, and the robustness against desynchronization attacks is improved by more than 49% when the embedding rate is 70 bps.

ECSS: High-Embedding-Capacity Audio Watermarking with Diversity Reception.

Digital audio watermarking is a promising technology for copyright protection, yet its low embedding capacity remains a challenge for widespread applications. In this paper, the spread-spectrum watermarking algorithm is viewed as a communication channel, and the embedding capacity is analyzed and modeled with information theory. Following this embedding capacity model, we propose the extended-codebook spread-spectrum (ECSS) watermarking algorithm to heighten the embedding capacity. In addition, the diversity reception (DR) mechanism is adopted to optimize the proposed algorithm to obtain both high embedding capacity and strong robustness while the imperceptibility is guaranteed. We experimentally verify the effectiveness of the ECSS algorithm and the DR mechanism, evaluate the performance of the proposed algorithm against common signal processing attacks, and compare the performance with existing high-capacity algorithms. The experiments demonstrate that the proposed algorithm achieves a high embedding capacity with applicable imperceptibility and robustness.

Efficient Biomedical Signal Security Algorithm for Smart Internet of Medical Things (IoMTs) Applications

Due to the rapid development of information and emerging communication technologies, developing and implementing solutions in the Internet of Medical Things (IoMTs) field have become relevant. This work developed a novel data security algorithm for deployment in emerging wireless biomedical sensor network (WBSN) and IoMTs applications while exchanging electronic patient folders (EPFs) over unsecured communication channels. These EPF data are collected using wireless biomedical sensors implemented in WBSN and IoMTs applications. Our algorithm is designed to ensure a high level of security for confidential patient information and verify the copyrights of bio-signal records included in the EPFs. The proposed scheme involves the use of Hahn’s discrete orthogonal moments for bio-signal feature vector extraction. Next, confidential patient information with the extracted feature vectors is converted into a QR code. The latter is then encrypted based on a proposed two-dimensional version of the modified chaotic logistic map. To demonstrate the feasibility of our scheme in IoMTs, it was implemented on a low-cost hardware board, namely Raspberry Pi, where the quad-core processors of this board are exploited using parallel computing. The conducted numerical experiments showed, on the one hand, that our scheme is highly secure and provides excellent robustness against common signal-processing attacks (noise, filtering, geometric transformations, compression, etc.). On the other hand, the obtained results demonstrated the fast running of our scheme when it is implemented on the Raspberry Pi board based on parallel computing. Furthermore, the results of the conducted comparisons reflect the superiority of our algorithm in terms of robustness when compared to recent bio-signal copyright protection schemes.

Trust-based secure routing and message delivery protocol for signal processing attacks in IoT applications

Trust-based secure routing and message delivery protocol for signal processing attacks in IoT applications

Dual-color blind image watermarking algorithm using the graph-based transform in the stationary wavelet transform domain

Aiming at the problem of color image copyright protection, a dual-color blind image watermarking algorithm using the graph-based transform (GBT) in the stationary wavelet transform domain (SWT) is proposed. First, the color watermark image and the color carrier image are separated into their R, G, and B channel components. Second, the R, G, and B components of the color watermark are scrambled by the Fibonacci–Lucas transform and encrypted with the cosine-transform-based chaotic system (CTBCS). Each component of the encrypted watermark is then converted into a binary sequence. Third, the low-frequency sub-bands from each component of the carrier image performed by the SWT are divided into non-overlapping blocks. Finally, the three binary watermark sequences are embedded into the GBT low-frequency coefficients of selected image blocks of the corresponding component by the parity quantization. Before the watermark extraction, the image to be authenticated is rotationally corrected based on the Fan-beam transform. This operation improves the resistance of the proposed algorithm to rotation geometry attacks. Experimental results show that the algorithm is robust to conventional signal processing attacks and to arbitrary angle rotation attacks while effectively ensuring the invisibility of the watermark.

Recaptured attack-resilient watermarking scheme

We propose a recaptured attack-resilient blind watermarking scheme. The work aims to recover the watermark information from the stego (watermarked image) reacquired through a digital liquid-crystal display monitor. In the age of digital globalization, problems like copyright and integrity infringement of digital content are growing exponentially. The content owner can prove their ownership by extracting the embedded watermark from the digitally breached data. The presented framework is robust to several geometrical and signal processing attacks, including lens distortions, intensity distortion, and moiré distortion caused by recapture attack. The singular values of a watermark image and a unique security key are embedded in the host image’s double-density dual-tree discrete wavelet transform (DDD-DWT) coefficients. However, most singular value decomposition (SVD) based watermarking algorithms are prone to false alarm rates and missed alarm rates, causing a security issue. On that account, the proposed watermarking scheme in this paper introduces a unique security key embedding for authentication at the decoder side. The experimental results show that the proposed framework provides high perceptibility with a WPSNR value >59 dB and robustness against various attacks and security.

SDH: Secure Data Hiding in Fused Medical Image for Smart Healthcare

Fusing the single modality medical images to obtain a distinct multimodality image is needed to ensure a better clinical experience. However, the distribution of these fused images brings the issues of ownership and authentication and has attracted many researchers. Presently, large volumes of medical data are stored on cloud platforms. However, outsourcing medical data to this popular platform may introduce security issues. Following this, we introduce a secure data hiding in fused medical image for smart healthcare, since it is also suitable for applications in the cloud. To achieve this, we first create a fused medical image as a cover by nonsubsampled contourlet transform (NSCT). The method, which is based on NSCT, QR, and Schur decomposition, allows concealing the image and electronic patient records (EPR) mark into the fused image. Importantly, EPR watermark includes a hash value of cover is created first and then embedded into the cover via magic cube-based procedure. Finally, the marked image is encrypted using deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA), chaotic maps, and a hash function-based encryption scheme. The introduced watermarking scheme has been evaluated using 25 pairs of medical images and several embedding/extracting parameters. Apart from being satisfactorily imperceptible, the proposed work is also robust and secure against well-known signal processing attacks and promising results are obtained when compared with similar techniques. It indicates a considerable improvement in robustness of 66.7% and 99.7% over existing discrete wavelet transform (DWT)–singular value decomposition (SVD)-based watermarking schemes.

A New High-Capacity Audio Watermarking Based on Wavelet Transform using the Golden Ratio and TLBO Algorithm

Digital watermarking is one of the best solutions for copyright infringement, copying, data verification, and illegal distribution of digital media. Recently, the protection of digital audio signals has received much attention as one of the fascinating topics for researchers and scholars. In this paper, we presented a new high-capacity, clear, and robust audio signaling scheme based on the DWT conversion synergy and golden ratio advantages using the TLBO algorithm. We used the TLBO algorithm to determine the effective frame length and embedded range, and the golden ratio to determine the appropriate embedded locations for each frame. First, the main audio signal was broken down into several sub-bands using a DWT in a specific frequency range. Since the human auditory system is not sensitive to changes in high-frequency bands, to increase the clarity and capacity of these sub-bands to embed bits we used the watermark signal. Moreover, to increase the resistance to common attacks, we framed the high-frequency bandwidth and then used the average of the frames as a key value. Our main idea was to embed an 8-bit signal simultaneously in the host signal. Experimental results showed that the proposed method is free from significant noticeable distortion (SNR about 29.68dB) and increases the resistance to common signal processing attacks such as high pass filter, echo, resampling, MPEG (MP3), etc.

Multipurpose medical image watermarking for effective security solutions.

Digital medical images contain important information regarding patient’s health and very useful for diagnosis. Even a small change in medical images (especially in the region of interest (ROI)) can mislead the doctors/practitioners for deciding further treatment. Therefore, the protection of the images against intentional/unintentional tampering, forgery, filtering, compression and other common signal processing attacks are mandatory. This manuscript presents a multipurpose medical image watermarking scheme to offer copyright/ownership protection, tamper detection/localization (for ROI (region of interest) and different segments of RONI (region of non-interest)), and self-recovery of the ROI with 100% reversibility. Initially, the recovery information of the host image’s ROI is compressed using LZW (Lempel-Ziv-Welch) algorithm. Afterwards, the robust watermark is embedded into the host image using a transform domain based embedding mechanism. Further, the 256-bit hash keys are generated using SHA-256 algorithm for the ROI and eight RONI regions (i.e. RONI-1 to RONI-8) of the robust watermarked image. The compressed recovery data and hash keys are combined and then embedded into the segmented RONI region of the robust watermarked image using an LSB replacement based fragile watermarking approach. Experimental results show high imperceptibility, high robustness, perfect tamper detection, significant tamper localization, and perfect recovery of the ROI (100% reversibility). The scheme doesn’t need original host or watermark information for the extraction process due to the blind nature. The relative analysis demonstrates the superiority of the proposed scheme over existing schemes.

Multiple Zero-Watermarking of Medical Images for Internet of Medical Things

The Internet of Medical Things (IoMT) plays a vital role in healthcare systems to increase electronic devices’ accuracy, reliability, and productivity. This paper presents fast multiple zero-watermarking methods based on Multi-channel Fractional Legendre Fourier moments (MFrLFMs) for medical image security and copyright protection in IoMT applications without deforming the original medical images. The MFrLFMs are utilized due to their high accuracy, numerical stability, geometric invariances, and high resistance to various attacks. Based on the most significant features generated from MFrLFMs, after scrambling using a two-dimensional Discrete Henon Map, then XORed with binary scrambled watermark to construct owner share. The proposed watermarking method is implemented using a low-cost Raspberry Pi Linux microprocessor, which ensures the suitability of medical devices in the IoMT environment. We evaluated the robustness of the proposed algorithm against different geometric and common signal processing attacks using various medical images. The proposed method gives better BER, NC, and SSIM values than existing methods.

Intelligent High Payload Audio Watermarking Algorithm Using Colour Image in DWT-SVD Domain

Copyright protection and ownership verification of digital audio tracks have become increasingly important to be enabled by digital watermarking techniques. A novel high payload intelligent audio watermarking scheme with RGB color watermark image is proposed in this paper. The color watermark image is encrypted using Arnold chaotic map and passed through an adaptive scaling filter to scale the image to match the required payload. The encoding process is performed on the scaled encrypted version of the watermark image. A portion of the audio signal is used to embed a synchronization code and the other one is decomposed into short frames. These frames are processed with a two-level discrete wavelet transform (DWT), followed by a singular value decomposition (SVD) process on the approximation coefficients. The encoded watermark is inserted into the diagonal matrix using quantization index modulation (QIM). The inverse process of SVD and DWT is applied to obtain the marked audio signal. Blind extraction of the hidden information from the marked audio signal is performed in the reverse order of the embedding process. Experiments show that security, high payload, transparency and imperceptibility of the algorithm are satisfied. The robustness against several kinds of audio signal processing attacks is shown. Performance evaluation tests with SNR, BER, and FSIM are conducted.

Design of Digital Image Watermarking Technique with Two Stage Vector Extraction in Transform Domain

Multimedia data in various forms is now readily available because of the widespread usage of Internet technology. Unauthorized individuals abuse multimedia material, for which they should not have access to, by disseminating it over several web pages, to defraud the original copyright owners. Numerous patient records have been compromised during the surge in COVID-19 incidents. Adding a watermark to any medical or defense documents is recommended since it protects the integrity of the information. This proposed work is recognized as a new unique method since an innovative technique is being implemented. The resilience of the watermarked picture is quite crucial in the context of steganography. As a result, the emphasis of this research study is on the resilience of watermarked picture methods. Moreover, the two-stage authentication for watermarking is built with key generation in the section on robust improvement. The Fast Fourier transform (FFT) is used in the entire execution process of the suggested framework in order to make computing more straightforward. With the Singular Value Decomposition (SVD) accumulation of processes, the overall suggested architecture becomes more resilient and efficient. A numerous quality metrics are utilized to find out how well the created technique is performing in terms of evaluation. In addition, several signal processing attacks are used to assess the effectiveness of the watermarking strategy.

A Robust Image Encrypted Watermarking Technique for Neurodegenerative Disorder Diagnosis and Its Applications.

The use of Internet technology has led to the availability of different multimedia data in various formats. The unapproved customers misuse multimedia information by conveying them on various web objections to acquire cash deceptively without the first copyright holder's intervention. Due to the rise in cases of COVID-19, lots of patient information are leaked without their knowledge, so an intelligent technique is required to protect the integrity of patient data by placing an invisible signal known as a watermark on the medical images. In this paper, a new method of watermarking is proposed on both standard and medical images. The paper addresses the use of digital rights management in medical field applications such as embedding the watermark in medical images related to neurodegenerative disorders, lung disorders, and heart issues. The various quality parameters are used to figure out the evaluation of the developed method. In addition, the testing of the watermarking scheme is done by applying various signal processing attacks.