An efficient and secure technique for image steganography using a hash function.

Area of Science:

• Computer Science
• Information Security
• Digital Forensics

Background:

• Steganography enables covert communication by hiding data within digital media.
• Digital images are ideal carriers for steganographic messages due to their availability and suitability.
• Existing steganographic methods vary in complexity, security, and efficiency.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop a secure mechanism for one-on-one communication using image steganography.
• To propose a novel technique for encrypting plain text into ciphertext and embedding it within digital images.
• To evaluate the proposed technique against state-of-the-art methods in terms of security and efficiency.

Main Methods:

• The proposed technique converts plain text to ciphertext using a hash function.
• Ciphertext is encoded into a digital image by modifying up to the four least significant bits (LSB) of pixel values.
• The least significant bits (LSB) modification ensures imperceptibility of the hidden data.

Main Results:

• The proposed steganography technique demonstrates superior security and efficiency compared to existing methods.
• The technique achieves adequate Mean Squared Error (MSE) and Peak Signal-to-Noise Ratio (PSNR) values.
• Visual inspection confirms that modifications to the image are imperceptible to the human eye.

Conclusions:

• The developed LSB-based steganography technique offers a robust solution for secure data hiding in images.
• The method provides a balance between data security, embedding capacity, and visual imperceptibility.
• This research contributes to advancing secure communication through efficient digital image steganography.