Types and Tools of Steganography

Abstract

Steganography is the practice of concealing a secret message inside of another message. It is a form of covert communication and can involve the use of any medium like a computer file, message, image, or video within the other file, message, image or video. It is not the same as cryptography where cryptography means secret writing and steganography which is not as popular as cryptography means covered writing. Many different file formats are often used but digital images or media files are the most popular due to their most-used on the web and the large size of media files. There exist many Steganography techniques for hiding secret information in images where some of them are more complex than others. Steganography works by changing bits of useless or used data in regular computer files such as graphics, sound, and text with bits of different and invisible information. Steganography technique refers to methods in which data hiding is performed directly on every hundredths or thousandths pixel value of cover image by replacing with corresponding to letter in the alphabet in such a way that the effect of message is not visible on the cover image and unnoticeable to someone. This paper is intended to illustrate the different steganography techniques and the purpose of techniques.