METHOD FOR IMAGE STEGANOGRAPHY USING LSB APPROACH

Ankita Agarwal Lecturer IMS Engg. College Ghaziabad ankita.890@gmail.com 09911741376 Sherish Johri Lecturer IMS Engg. College Ghaziabad sherish3@gmail.com 09310176906 Vikas Tyagi Lecturer IMS Engg. College Ghaziabad itengg.vikas@gmail.com 09457172227

Abstract
To increase the capacity of the hidden secret information, a novel steganographic approach is presented. This paper discusses the design on a robust image Steganography technique based on LSB (Least Significant Bit) insertion and RSA encryption technique. The application discussed in this paper ranks images in a user library based on their suitability as cover objects from some data. By matching data to an image, there is less chance of an attacker being able to use steganalysis to recover data. Before hiding the data in an image the application first encrypts it.

Keywords:
Steganography, Least significant bit (LSB), Information hiding, Encryption.

1. Introduction
Steganography has attracted lots of attention during recent years. It is the art of concealing a message in a cover without leaving a remarkable track on the original message. The word steganography comes from the Greek Steganos, which means convered or secret and graphy means writing or drawing i.e. Steganography means literally coveredwriting. Steganography is a form of convert communication in which a secret message is camouflaged within a carrier message. The goal of Steganography is to mask the very presence of communication making the true message not discernible to the observer. Compared with cryptography techniques attempting to conceal the content of messages, steganography conceals the existence of the secret messages. Due to the vast development of multimedia application, the digital media files such as images, audio and video files are being used as carrier contents of steganography. There exist several steganographic methods, the most popular are: 1) watermarking and fingerprinting, 2) LSB insertion (substitution), 3) transform domain based steganography.

A. Watermarking and Fingerprinting: In watermarking applications, the message contains information such as, owner identification and a digital time stamp, which is usually applied for copyright protection. With fingerprint, the owner of the data set embeds a serial number that uniquely identifies him as the owner. This adds to copyright information and makes it possible to trace any unauthorized usage of the data set.

Original Image Embedding Stage

Watermarked Image Manipulation Stage

Recovered Image Extraction Stage.

Block diagram of watermarked process B. LSB Insertion: One of the techniques used in Steganography to hide data behind images is called the least-significant bit (LSB) insertion wherein the LSB of each byte of the pixel of the images raster data is replaced with the single bit of the data to be hidden. This is based on the premise that the total number of bit-changes in the images raster data will be so small that the resulting stego-image will be indistinguishable to the human eye from the original image. LSB Steganography that replaces the least significant bits of the host medium is a widely used technique with low computational complexity and high insertion capacity. A large number of commercial Steganographic programs use the least significant bit embedding as the method of choice for message hiding in 24-bit, 8-bit color images, and grayscale images respectively. It is commonly believed that changes to the LSBs of colors cannot be detected due to noise that is always presented in digital images. C. Transform Domain- Based Steganography This method embeds secret message is a transformed space (such as frequency domain) of the cover; an example is the discrete transformation (DCT). DCT-domain message hiding based steganographic techniques provide high image imperceptibility and exact data recovery in absence of noise.

2. Proposed Model
In it the message is embed into the least significant bit plane of the image. Since this will only effect each pixel by +1, -1, if it all, it is generally assumed with good reason that the degradation caused by this embedding process would be perceptually transparent.

There are many Steganography tools which are capable of hiding data within an image. These tools can be classified into five categories based on their algorithm: (1) spatial domain based tools; (2) transform domain based tools; (3) document based tools; (4) file structure based tools; and (5) other categories such as video compress encoding and spread spectrum technique based tools. The spatial domain based Steganography tools use either the LSB or bit plane complexity Segmentation (BPCS) algorithm. The transform domain based Steganography tools embed the message in the transform coefficients of the image. The main transform domain algorithm is JSteg. The document based steganography tools embed the secret message in document files by adding tabs or space to .txt or .doc files. The spread spectrum technique spreads the energy of embedded message to a wide frequency band, making the hidden message difficult to detect.

3. Algorithms
A. Encoder Convert to bit stream 001101010 Divide into 8- bit blocks

Message

[00110101] [01100110] [10010110]

PRNG

Image

Divide into 8-pixel blocks.

Embed message into LSB of image

Stego-image

Block diagram of Encoder

Start by calculating the total number of pixels in the image. Divide the image into 8-pixel blocks. If the image size is not a multiple of 8, the trailing pixels are ignored. Thereafter take the text message that is to be secretly transmitted and convert it into its equivalent bit-stream. Divide this message into 8-bit blocks. Calculate the equivalent decimal value of the 8-bit block. If the decimal value lies between 0 and 85, the RED plane is used for embedding If the decimal value lies between 86 and 170, the GREEN plane is used for embedding. Otherwise, the BLUE plane is used for embedding Randomly permute the 8-pixel blocks using a symmetric key. Choose an 8-pixel block and embed the 8-pixel message block the LSB of the pixels in the pixel block in the chosen plane. Similarly, embed the entire message in the image, repeating steps 5 through 7 for each message block.

B. Decoder. Stego -image Divide into 8-pixel block Extract LSBs from image

[00110101] [01100110] [10010110]

PRNG

Message

Convert to ASCII 0011010101

Concatenate bit

Block diagram of Decoder

Obtain the image with the secret message and divide it into 8-pixel blocks. If the size of the image is not a multiple of 8, ignore the trailing pixels Permute the blocks, using the symmetric key.

For each pixel in the pixel block, compare the R/G/B plane value. For a gray image, R=G=B, but as the image has been manipulated, R, G, B values will not be equal. The plane with the embedded message has a different value Obtain the message by concatenating the LSBs of the 8-pixel blocks. Similarly, obtain the entire message stream and convert it back into ASCII format.

C. Encryption Algorithm The data to be hidden in first encrypted using the RSA public key algorithm. Encryption the data before hiding it provides defense in depth, and makes the job of the attacker more difficult if their goal is to recover the secret data. The application uses the RSA algorithm for two reasons: First, by using a public key algorithm the need for a private shared key between the sender and recipient of the data is eliminated. Shared keys are impractical because they require a secure way of distributing the key to every person who you may want to communicate with. Second, the RSA algorithm is also widely known and demonstrably secure if large enough prime numbers are used to generate the keys. Using an algorithm such as RSA which is public knowledge is in keeping with the principle of open design of secure software systems.

4. Evaluation
This section discusses the results of using our application to hide data in an image and corroborates the theory on which our algorithm is based. The cover image used to hide data is shown in Figure 1(a). The data hidden in the file is the string This is a Demo Test encrypted using a public key of (5,797). The image with the hidden data is shown in Figure 1(b). This particular cover image was chosen because it was ranked at 94% by our application which indicates that 94% of the least significant bits in the image matched the bits of data to be hidden.

Fig.1 (a)

Fig.1 (b)

As can be seen these images are visually identical. The least significant bits of these images were also analyzed using a program called StegAlyzerSS developed by the Steganography Analysis and Research Center. This program can be used to detect and analyze images that have hidden data.As can be seen these LSB images are almost identical. StegAlyzerSS uses the LSBs of the image to analyze them for hidden data. Thus, our application is an improvement over existing works because it gives users statistical information regarding how well their data can be hidden within a given image.

5. Conclusion
The work presented in this report is an effort to develop a robust Steganographic System for use in covert communication. This paper introduced the concept of steganography and steganalysis as well as the methods for carrying these out. We believe that steganography when combined with encryption provides a secure means of secret communication between two parties. The message to be hidden is embedded in the LSBs of the pixels of the image. The assessment of the proposed algorithms against attack was evaluated using a chi-square analysis technique where the proposed approach showed superiority.

6. References
1) Eric Cole, Ronald D. Krutz, Hiding in Plain Sight: Steganography and the Art of Covert Communication, Wiley Publishing Inc. (2003). 2) E. Biham, A. Shamir. Differential cryptanalysis of DES-like cryptosystems, Journal of Cryptology, vol. 4, pp. 3-72, January 1991. 3) Aelphaeis Mangarae, Steganography FAQ, Zone- H.org (2006). 4) Wang, Y., Moulin, P. , Steganalysis of Block- DCT Image Steganography, Beckman Institute, CSL & ECE Department, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2003. 5) Artz, D, Digital Steganography: Hiding data within Data, IEEE Internet Computing, May/June 2001.