A novel magic LSB substitution method (M-LSB-SM) using multi-level encryption and achromatic component of an image

Abstract

Image Steganography is a thriving research area of information security where secret data is embedded in images to hide its existence while getting the minimum possible statistical detectability. This paper proposes a novel magic least significant bit substitution method (M-LSB-SM) for RGB images. The proposed method is based on the achromatic component (Iplane) of the hue-saturation-intensity (HSI) color model and multi-level encryption (MLE) in the spatial domain. The input image is transposed and converted into an HSI color space. The Iplane is divided into four sub-images of equal size, rotating each sub-image with a different angle using a secret key. The secret information is divided into four blocks, which are then encrypted using an MLE algorithm (MLEA). Each sub-block of the message is embedded into one of the rotated sub-images based on a specific pattern using magic LSB substitution. Experimental results validate that the proposed method not only enhances the visual quality of stego images but also provides good imperceptibility and multiple security levels as compared to several existing prominent methods.Steganographic methods are broadly classified into spatial domain and transform domain methods. In the spatial domain, the gray levels of the original carrier image are directly modified for encoding the secret data. These techniques employ a high payload but are vulnerable to image processing manipulations and statistical attacks such as image cropping, image compressing, noise attacks and chi-square attack. Some examples of spatial domain techniques include LSB [8][9][10][11], gray-level modification method [12], edges based embedding techniques [4,[13][14][15][16], pixel indicator techniques (PIT) [17,18], pixel value differencing techniques [19,20], pixel pair matching method [21], and tri-way pixel value differencing method [22]. In transform domain, the image is converted from the spatial domain to the transform domain and the image coefficients are modified to hide secret information. These techniques have a lower payload but they are more robust against statistical attacks. Some examples of transform domain techniques are the discrete wavelength transform technique [23], discrete Fourier transform technique [24], discrete cosine transform techniques [25,26], and contourlet transform technique [27].The simplest and most basic spatial domain steganographic method is LSB substitution, which hides secret data inside a cover image. With this method, the least significant bits of the carrier image pixels are replaced with the secret data bits. Payload capacity of the LSB method can be increased if more than 1 LSBs are used for message embedding, but it makes noticeable changes in the carrier image. Wang et.al, [28] presented a genetic algorithm based on an LSB substitution scheme for improving the stego image quality. The Wang et.al, approach requires more processing time, which is its major shortcoming. To reduce the complexity of the Wang et.al, scheme, Chang et.al,[29] proposed a fast algorithm...

An ECC/DCT-Based Robust Video Steganography Algorithm for Secure Data Communication

“…After the embedding process, all frames are merged together to produce the stego video. Raw video steganographic techniques consist of spatial and transform domain techniques [23].…”

Local Negative Base Transform and Image Scrambling

“…Security protection of digital image includes mainly data encryption and information hiding. Image scrambling is a technique of image encryption or auxiliary encryption [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9], and also an important method of preprocessing and postprocessing in image hiding, sharing, and digital watermarking [7,[10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17]. Particularly in the application of robust digital watermark, scrambling technique is a very effective method against cropping attack by shuffling watermark image so that the pixels are dispersed in the position space of carrier image.…”

“…Particularly in the application of robust digital watermark, scrambling technique is a very effective method against cropping attack by shuffling watermark image so that the pixels are dispersed in the position space of carrier image. The popular image scrambling methods include Arnold transform [1-3, 10-12, 18], Fibonacci transform [7,10,13,14], Peano-Hilbert space filling curve [19], knight's tour [8,20], Lucas transform [16], magic square transform [9,17], Gray code [21,22], cellular automata [15,[23][24][25], Baker map [4][5][6]26], subaffine transform [27], and sampling technology [28].…”

“…For two-dimensional scrambling transforms, the popular scrambling transform is Arnold transform, but it requires the sizes of images are the form of × [10]; Fibonacci-Q 2 Mathematical Problems in Engineering transform is the special case of Arnold transforms [10]. Unlike Arnold transform, knight's tour [8] and PeanoHilbert curve [19], John Conway game [15], and magic square transform [9] are not easy to calculate and are rarely used in the application of image scrambling. In general, if using John Conway game to shuffle images we first need to generate a random matrix of 0 and 1, and thus there are difficulties to restore scrambled images.…”

A Novel Technique for Securing Data Communication Systems by Using Cryptography and Steganography

“…After that, a secret key is used to rotate the four sub-images with different angles. The secret information is divided into four blocks, then each block is encrypted by using multilevel encryption algorithm (MLEA) and embedded into one of the rotated sub-images based on a specific pattern using magic LSB substitution [36].…”