Image steganography approach for secure data communication

Abstract

Research in information security is becoming more and more important and the newlinesteganography technique is significantly used to transmit secret information. In recent newlinedays, for sending secret messages, we require secure internet. Image steganography is newlineconsidered as the eminent tool for data hiding which provides better security for the data newlinetransmitted over internet and also it is an emerging security technique to secure newlineinformation related to Internet of Things. The sensitive data transferred or stored in the newlinecloud storage has to be protected from the fraudulence. Any sensitive data from base newlinestation or an IoT device can be securely stored in cloud so that only intended user could newlineaccess by using image steganography techniques which gives authentication. newlineThe researcher makes an attempt to provide security to the confidential data using DCT newlineand Compressed Sensing algorithm in her early stage of research. RGB color planes are newlineextracted and then DCT is applied in order to decrease the redundant information. Then newlinethe compressed image is embedded using selective keys generated. At receiver side the newlinecompressive sensing reconstruction algorithm is used to reconstruct the secret image. newlineThe proposed method results in significant improvements with high PSNR value and newlinepayload capacity. newlineIn the second approach, the researcher makes use of Modulo-4 addition technique by newlineconsidering two least significant bits from each pixel of the carrier image for mapping newlineand addition. Two bits of payload data can be embedded in one cover image pixel hence newlineenhanced the hiding capacity. A mapping function for addition is applied on 1st and 2nd newlinebits of cover image pixel, and required mapping table is constructed in the algorithm newlinewhich gives the solution for data hiding and extraction. In the next approach, the newlinetechnique used is based on DCT and shuffling of payload data before embedding is newlineconsidered. The percentage of compression is decided based on the quality of a payload newlineimage required for transmission.