Steganographic System Research Articles

Enhancing Image Steganography through Generative Adversarial Networks: Applications and Innovations

Image steganography, a technique for embedding secret information within images, has evolved significantly with the introduction of Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs). Traditional methods often struggled with limitations such as low steganographic capacity and poor image quality. This article explores the integration of GANs into image steganography, focusing on three main applications: carrier modification, carrier selection, and carrier synthesis. GANs enhance the embedding capacity, imperceptibility, and security of steganographic systems by generating encrypted images that are robust against advanced steganalysis techniques. The study examines the advancements and challenges in applying GANs, highlighting the potential for further research and application. It is noted that while GANs offer substantial improvements, the diversity of methods and practical applications remains limited. Future research directions include exploring diverse techniques and enhancing generative models to produce more sophisticated steganographic content that could be integrated into daily use, aiming for broader and more secure applications in secure communications.

Comprehensive Survey of Image Steganography Systems based on FPGA Implementation

Steganography is the art of concealed communication. The basic idea of steganography is to hide secret data inside a cover media in an undetectable manner. Cover media and Secret data can be any popular digital media such as image, video, audio, or text. Various types of image steganography methods have been proposed according to the cover image domain, i.e. spatial domain and transform domain. The spatial domain methods are easy and simple while the transform domain methods are more complex. However, the transform domain methods are more robust against image processing operations. Besides, they are more secure and less detectable in an unsecured channel. The recent steganography methods are based on sophisticated algorithms that include several computational time-consuming tasks, and hence they are unable to embed and extract the hidden data in real-time. Therefore, the trend is to implement the steganography methods in the hardware to speed up their processing time and so improves the efficacy of steganography techniques. FPGA is used in various fields in the modern era due to lower development cost, flexibility, and reconfigurability. Most of the published steganography techniques carried out on FPGA are based on the spatial domain. In this paper, it has comprehensively studied and reviewed various existing implementations of image steganography on FPGAs. This includes studying their general operations, requirements, and performance evaluations. This review would assist researchers in finding the research gaps in FPGA implementation of steganography methods for real-time applications.

Retraction Note: Hybrid Speech Steganography System using SS-RDWT with IPDP-MLE approach

Retraction Note: Hybrid Speech Steganography System using SS-RDWT with IPDP-MLE approach

Optimising Text Steganography with Alpha-Based Representative Binary: Analysing Contain Letter Used and Capacity Ratio

Text steganography has become essential for secure communication in the digital age, offering a method to hide messages within seemingly ordinary text. This paper introduces the Alpha-based Representative Binary technique, an advanced feature-based method for text steganography. It utilizes both capital and small letters to represent 2-bit binary values, embedding more information without altering the visual integrity of the text. By assigning different binary values to uppercase and lowercase letters, this technique optimizes the balance between information density and detectability. Embedding 2-bit values strikes an ideal balance, as it allows for a higher capacity of hidden information while maintaining a low profile. This study evaluates the performance of the Alpha-based Representative Binary technique against existing methods like QUAD and One-Flow-2-bit, focusing on two metrics performance: the total character count in the stego text (contain letter used) and the amount of data that can be embedded relative to the cover text size (capacity ratio). The findings underscore the technique's strengths in maintaining secure and undetectable hidden messages within text. This paper highlights the evolution and effectiveness of feature-based methods, emphasizing the need for continued innovation to address detection risks and content modification challenges. By providing a detailed analysis and potential improvements, this paper aims to contribute to the development of more robust and undetectable text steganography systems. The perceptions gained from this paper is expected as valuable for researchers and practitioners in the field of secure communication.

Image Steganography: Current Landscape and Critical Challenges

The practice of hiding secret information in digital images is known as steganography. In the course of time, this practice has grown immensely. Our paper looks closely at what is going on at present in image steganography. We are detailing old and new tools. We will discuss big issues related to this field, making such a practice hard to attack, tough to spot, and able to hold more data. We will also explain herein how steganography can be enhanced by machine learning. Finally, we suggest some new areas to be researched, these suggestions aims to solve the main problems and reach to a practical image steganography system.

DNA Origami Steganography Based on Photocleavable Oligonucleotides

AbstractDNA nanostructures have been regarded as promising platforms for molecular information coding for their high programmability and nanoscale addressability. However, steganography based on DNA nanostructures still needs further investigation. Here, we designed and synthesized a coumarin derivative structure with selective photo responsiveness in the visible light spectrum and developed a DNA origami steganography system that can only be decrypted through specific light exposure conditions. Under right light treatment, the effective cleavage of photoresponsive groups would cause some of the streptavidin binding sites to detach from the origami, thereby allowing the steganographic information to be read correctly.

Enhancing Contextual Masking in Reversible Linguistic Steganography with Ensemble Methods

Various cybercrimes can be prevented by text authentication that is responsible for preserving digital identities and contents. Digital signatures come in handy as a way of authenticating texts, which is an extensively used method. One approach to this problem is linguistic steganography, which allows hiding the signature in other words within the text and thereby facilitating efficient data management. However, it should be noted that there is a danger that these kinds of changes may result in inappropriate decisions being taken by automated computing systems not to mention change their final outputs (unseen). As such, many people are becoming more concerned with the possibility of reversing steganography so that it becomes possible to eliminate any distortions made during the process. This paper uses Contextual masking instead of masking randomly with BERT model. The goal behind this research was developing a natural language text specific Reversible Steganographic System. Our model uses pre-trained BERT as a transformer based masked language model and reversibly embeds messages through predictive word substitution. To quantify predictive uncertainty, we introduce an adaptive steganographic technique using Bayesian deep learning. This experiment shows us how our proposed system balances imperceptibility with capacity while maintaining near semantics at all times. Also, we integrate ensemble methods instead of Monte Carlo to balance the imperceptibility.

МЕТОД ДВОКАСКАДНОЇ ІМПЛАНТАЦІЇ ПРИХОВАНОЇ ІНФОРМАЦІЇ НА ОСНОВІ СТЕГАНОКОМПРЕСІЙНИХ ПЕРЕТВОРЕНЬ

In the article, the need for further development of the state is directly related to: solving issues of increasing defense capability and information security; development of information and intelligent systems. The necessity of ensuring the required level of completeness of information, compliance with the requirements of its relevance, achievement and maintenance of the appropriate level of integrity, accessibility and confidentiality is substantiated. The article emphasizes that for this purpose, complex systems of coding and information protection are being built. It is shown that recently, in order to further increase the level of security of information resources, methods of hidden embedding of information have been used. In this field of scientific and applied research, the direction of timely delivery of integral video information in a secure mode is outlined. For protection, the following can be used: meta-messages, which are formed on the basis of intelligent analysis of video frames; separate video segments of aerial photographs containing the most important information for decision-making. This article examines a class of methods of steganographic transformations, which are associated with embedding messages in digital containers, which are formed by a stream of video segments (VS). However, existing steganographic systems are based mainly on the use of the amount of psychovisual (PSV) redundancy available for reduction. Therefore, an increase in steganographic capacity leads to a loss of integrity and efficiency of delivery of video-container information. Steganocompression coding in the stegano-polyadic basis was created on the basis of taking into account the amount of redundancy permissible for reduction. In this case, in the process of compression of the components of the VS, the direct embedding of hidden information is organized. Concealment of information is carried out by technological stages, depending on the compression transformation of the transitional syntax of the quilted sequence. The key stage is the technology of two-stage implementation of the elements of the concealed message added to the stegano sequences to the syntax of the steganocompression representation of the BC components.

VLSI Implementation of Speech Steganography with Advanced Wavelet Transform

In the realm of secure communication systems, the integration of advanced wavelet transforms into speech steganography systems has emerged as a promising path. Secure transmission of sensitive information in military communications, confidential exchange of data in corporate environments, and protection of personal information in telecommunication networks. However, the current system employs conventional methods of speech steganography, relying on basic encryption techniques and simplistic embedding algorithms. While functional, these approaches lack robustness and fail to adequately conceal secret data within speech signals, leaving them vulnerable to detection and interception. So, the proposed system leverages advanced wavelet transforms to enhance the security and efficiency of speech steganography. By exploiting the multi-resolution analysis capabilities of wavelets, the system achieves improved embedding capacity while maintaining perceptual transparency. Additionally, the use of dynamic embedding algorithms based on wavelet coefficients ensures adaptability to varying signal characteristics, enhancing robustness against attacks and noise interference. The VLSI implementation of this system optimizes resource utilization and computational efficiency, making it suitable for real-time applications in communication systems.

THE IMPACT OF PRE-CRYPTOGRAPHIC CODING MESSAGES ON ITS DETECTABILITY IN STEGANOGRAPHIC SYSTEMS

The usual problem of steganography is to mask an important message in a covering object that is of no interest to the attacker. In this case, attention is paid to protection from detection of the very fact of the message embedding a, since if an attacker suspects the presence of a hidden message in the transmitted information object, he can destroy the message. By the way no attention is paid to reading tolerance in steganography, since it is believed that this issue is solved by preliminary crypto-graphic encryption of the message. However, such encryption affects statistical parameters of the message, which plays an important role in the steganographic system formation. The artiсle is devoted to the analysis of the influence of cryptographic coding on the potential detectability of the message after steganographic masking. The results of the study on the influence of crypto-graphic coding on the transmitted data distribution values when using the «Kuznyechik» cipher are presented.

Hiding scrambled text messages in speech signals using a lightweight hyperchaotic map and conditional LSB mechanism.

This study presents a lightweight, secure audio steganography system for hiding text messages for transmission over the Internet, with the aim of addressing the current problems of high computational cost and insufficient security identified in earlier studies. We propose a two-phase functioning mechanism. Text characters are first transformed into ASCII code and stored in a vector, which is then divided into three sub-vectors. These sub-vectors are scrambled using two low-complexity operations, namely a forward-backward reading technique and an odd-even index. Two scrambling loops are performed, the first on the small sub-vectors the second on the vector as a whole. In the hiding phase, the speech signal samples are divided into 256 blocks using only 200 values per block, and low-complexity quadratic and the Hénon maps are used to hide the speech signal in a random manner. The conditional LSB is applied as a low-complexity algorithm to identify hidden bits, and a special hyperchaotic map algorithm is developed to randomly choose locations. The proposed approach provides good security for a scrambled text message, with high SNR and PSNR, small MSE and PESQ, a SSIM value of close to one (As indicated in Tables 1, 2, 3, and 4), a BER value of close to zero (as shown in table 8), NCC value near +1 (as shown in table 8), and an MOS value of near five (as described in table 6), as well as a low computational hiding cost.

A Deep Dive into Deep Learning-Powered Steganography for Enhanced Security: Review

- Steganography—the practice of hiding data in digital media—has attracted a lot of interest because of its possible uses in secure communication. This study offers a thorough summary of the most recent developments in steganography, emphasizing the incorporation of deep learning (DL) methods in particular. The review explores several steganographic techniques, classifies them, and assesses the advantages and disadvantages of each. Moreover, it reviews current research projects that use DL to improve security and resilience in steganographic systems. This evaluation finds new trends, problems, and possibilities in the field by examining related studies. The major goal is to advance this field and broaden our understanding of steganography-based secure communication.

Optimize Image Steganography Based on Distinction Disparity Value and HMPSO to Ensure Confidentiality and Integrity

To secure the massive amounts of secret messages, the integrity and confidentiality challenges must be addressed. Pressing challenges in the context of a steganography system include security, imperceptibility, and capacity issues. There are trade‐offs between payload and security that have been neglected by researchers, as fixing one issue has been indicated to affect the other, and vice versa. To overcome these challenges, a new steganography scheme based on HMPSO and DDV was introduced. The HMPSO is short for Hénon map and particle swarm optimization, while DDV is short for distinction disparity value. The proposed scheme consisted of four phases with different contributions. The first phase was used to preprocess the secret messages and cover images. In this phase, the secret message has been compressed using the Huffman method. The second phase involved the embedding procedure. This phase consists of two different contributions HMPSO and DDV. The HMPSO is responsible for the optimal pixels’ selection. While the DDV is responsible for the embedding process. The third phase involves the extraction method. In extraction, the reverse processes of the previous steps are implemented. Different evaluation parameters have been used to validate and test the proposed scheme such as SSIM, PSNR, HVS, Histogram analysis, and chi‐square test. Based on the findings, the proposed scheme has solved the confidentiality and integrity challenges and provides a robust steganography system.

Algorithm of information stability in hydroacoustic control channel for aquaculture

Increasing attention is being paid to the mechanisms of data transfer between ocean research devices and data collection and analysis centers for the subsequent study and theorization of ocean evolution. All transmitted data are vulnerable to interception by unauthorized parties, so one of the main challenges is to protect the transmitted information. The proposed algorithm is based on steganographic method and solves the authentication problem by embedding additional data into the original signal in such a way that it is not empirically detectable. Among the first and best- known methods for hidden data embedding is a technique based on spread spectrum technology and its various adaptations, which incorporate additional parameters into the mathematical equation to improve the efficiency of the method. However, when auxiliary information is encoded into the original audio signal, these parameters affect both the covertness and robustness of the embedded data, potentially compromising the integrity of the steganographic system. Consequently, the development of steganographic techniques is aimed at simultaneously improving stealth and robustness.

Image Steganography: A Review

Abstract: An image steganographic scheme is one kind of steganographic systems, where the secret message is hidden in a digital image with some hiding method. Someone can then use a proper embedding procedure to recover the hidden message from the image. The original image is called a cover image in steganography, and the message-embedded image is called a stego image. This Steganography technique is more popular in recent year than other steganography possibly because of the flood of electronic image information available with the advent of digital cameras and high-speed internet distribution. It can involve hiding information in the naturally occurred noise within the image. In this paper we provide a review on various image steganography techniques.

Designing and implementing an information steganography system for transmitting encrypted text messages in digital images

This danger can undoubtedly be eliminated using cryptography and steganography. And Combining encryption with steganography can assist in achieving high levels of data security, making this approach superior to using either of these techniques alone to send data across an unreliable route that is open to hacking. Visible steganography is one of the most secure steganography techniques. When the data text is inserted, the image's color frequency may vary slightly, which would be highly evident to anyone. We suggest levels of data security to get around the image's apparent behavior, where the language of the data is first transformed into an unintelligible cipher. An additional degree of protection is added by incorporating the cipher into an encrypted picture file before dividing it into shares. As a result, the ideas of steganography and cryptography are both applied to offer two levels of security and then a visual cryptography system is used to partition the picture into shares so that it may be transferred over a network channel.

Construction of a model of steganographic embedding of the UAV identifier into ADS-B data

Secure data exchange in the control system of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) is an important aspect for preventing unauthorized access and safety of aerial vehicles. Given the problems of automatic dependent surveillance-broadcast (ADS-B) data protection, the safety level of UAV flight tasks and air traffic in general is significantly reduced. Therefore, the protection of ADS-B data is an urgent task. The object of the study is the process of steganographic protection of ADS-B format data. A relevant problem of estimating the probabilistic time characteristics of the steganographic protection process is solved, taking into account the features of data embedding in the ADS-B format container. To solve it, a mathematical formalization of the methods of finding probabilistic-temporal characteristics of steganographic systems was carried out. A model of steganographic data transformation operations based on the Chinese remainder theorem has been built. The main difference of the model is taking into account the features of the ADS-B format data. This made it possible to formalize and evaluate the time functions of steganographic encoding and decoding of UAV identifiers with an integrated ADS-B system. A model of steganographic data transformation operations based on the finite integral ring theorem has been constructed. A list of operations performed in the developed algorithm has been compiled. This made it possible to carry out mathematical formalization of operations for complex use in the model of steganographic protection of UAV identifiers with a built-in ADS-B system. The mathematical model was studied and the estimation of the random value of the time of steganographic transformation of data, as well as the confidence interval, was performed. With the help of the reported set of models, it is possible to estimate the probability of the algorithm’s execution time falling within the given interval. The results of the calculation of probabilistic-time characteristics could be used in models of a higher level of the hierarchy

Optimizing Data Security with Hybrid Scheme Based on LSB and DWT

One of the most popular techniques in image steganography is the Least Significant Bit (LSB) operation, which involves inserting secret data into the cover image's pixels' least significant bit. However, the amount of secret data that can be concealed in the cover image depends on the number of bits used for embedding. In this paper, a novel hybrid steganographic system based on Discrete Wavelet Transform (DWT) and Least Significant Bit (LSB) for image steganography is proposed. The proposed scheme aims to optimize data security by utilizing LSB and DWT techniques to embed secret data into an image robustly and efficiently. The present paper focuses on evaluating the algorithm performance by comparing the encrypted image quality using metrics such as PSNR, RMSE, and SSIM. The experimental results showed that the suggested method outperforms the existing LSB-based in terms of security performance. These results indicated that the proposed method consistently outperforms the conventional LSB-based method across all bit depths tested, with an overall improvement of 14.12% in PSNR, 41.87% in RMSE, and 4.02% in SSIM over the traditional LSB. The proposed method enhanced the PSNR values, reduced the RMSE values, and increased the SSIM values for all bit depths tested, indicating higher image fidelity, less distortion, and better preservation of structural similarity of the original image.

Model of Message Transmission across Parallel Route Groups with Dynamic Alternation of These Groups in a Multichannel Steganographic System

The subject of this study is steganographic systems that are able to hide not only the content of the transmitted information but also the fact of its transmission. In this paper, we present a novel data transmission model within such systems, combining a modified Dijkstra’s algorithm with the dynamic utilization of multiple transmission routes. Consequently, this allows the simultaneous transmission of messages through parallel groups of routes with the dynamic alternation of these groups during the information exchange process between the sender and the receiver in the steganographic network. Thus, the speed, reliability, and security of message transmission are improved. Moreover, to increase the security level, the proposed model uses a route–time matrix that is available only to the sender and receiver. Additionally, the data transmission model has been tested on synthetic data and data obtained from real devices. The evaluation of the effectiveness of the proposed model on the example of various structured steganographic systems shows the significant effectiveness of our model. As a result, in comparison with existing similar methods, the secrecy index was increased five times and the violation index was decreased four times.

Steganographic method of acoustic information protection in critical applications systems

The subject of the study is the process of protecting acoustic information in critical computer systems to ensure the required level of system security. The purpose of the article is to study the method of protecting acoustic information in critical computer systems by means of masking to ensure the impossibility of unauthorized access to the system. The paper outlines the following tasks: to analyze the software and hardware masking of speech; to study the masking of speech messages in order to introduce unrecognizability; to consider the features of speech message compression; to investigate methods of covert transmission of acoustic information. The results of the work, which were obtained using mathematical methods of information transformation in computer systems, are potentially possible methods of masking speech messages to ensure the impossibility of unauthorized access to the system. The analysis of the functioning of the proposed methods made it possible to formulate specific conclusions. The research has shown that the use of direct expansion of the spectrum of discrete signals for steganographic purposes helps to covertly embed information messages in still images. The task of extracting a message on the receiving side of a steganography system is equivalent to the task of detecting information from a mixture of a useful signal and an interference in a broadband communication system. The research revealed certain disadvantages of steganographic systems with an expanded spectrum of discrete signals: the probability of correct extraction of embedded data depends on the amount of distortion introduced, which depends on the provided bandwidth of the steganographic channel. Further research is desirable to analyze the possible use of methods for synthesizing large ensembles of quasi-orthogonal discrete signals with improved ensemble, structural, and correlation properties to ensure higher security of acoustic channels in computer systems for critical applications.