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Thadani Marg,
Worli-400018
(Affiliated to the Mumbai University)

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This to certify that ________________ has successfully completed the Project Synopsis titled

Steganography in image processing using MATLAB

In the partial fulfillment of Bachelors Degree in Electronics and Telecommunication
Engineering under the guidance of ___________________

University of Mumbai
2015-2016

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Watumull Institute of Electronics Engineering & Computer Technology
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Acknowledgement
First we would like to thank the Supreme Power, one who has always guided me to
work on the right path of the life. Without His grace this would never come to be
todays reality.
This project work would not have been possible without the encouragement and
able guidance of our guide Mrs.Vrushali Purandare.

We would like to express our deep gratitude towards Mrs.Sunita Sharma, Head
of Electronics and Telecommunication department and our beloved principal. Her
enthusiasm and optimism made this experience both rewarding and enjoyable.
Most of the novel ideas and solutions found in this project are the result of our
numerous stimulating discussions. Their feedback and editorial comments were
also invaluable.
We would also like to thank all the teaching and non-teaching faculty members
of the department and our friends who directly or indirectly helped us in
completion of my project work.

Students Name

Abstract

Steganography is the art of hiding the fact that communication is taking place, by hiding private
information in other public information. Many different carrier file formats can be used, but digital
images are the most popular because of their frequency on the internet. For hiding secret
information in images, there exists a large variety of steganographic techniques, some are more
complex than others and all of them have their respective strong and weak points. Different
applications have different requirements of the Steganographic technique. For example, some
applications may require absolute invisibility of the information, while others require a larger
message to be hidden. Besides hiding data for confidentiality, this approach of information hiding
can be extended to copyright protection for digital media. In this research, we clarify what
Steganography is, the definition, the importance as well as the techniques used in implementing
Steganography.

Introduction
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Steganography becomes more important as more people join the cyberspace. Steganography is the
art of concealing information in ways that prevent the detection of hidden messages.
Steganography includes an array of secret communication methods that hide the message from
being seen or discovered. The goal of Steganography is to avoid drawing suspicion to the existence
of a hidden message.
Some of the techniques used in Steganography are domain tools or system such as least significant
bit (LSB) insertion and noise manipulation, and transform domain that involve manipulation
algorithms and image transformation. However there are techniques that share the characteristic of
both the image and domain tools such as patchwork, pattern block encoding, spread spectrum
methods and masking. The security of the message can be amplified by combining it with
cryptography. Steganography differs from cryptography in the sense that where cryptography
focuses on keeping the content of a message secret, Steganography focuses on keeping the
existence of a message secret. Steganography and cryptography are both ways to protect
information from unwanted parties.

Literature Survey

With reference to a series of detailed Technical Paper surveys,

Steganography can be explained as a process of hiding the existence of information inside a
cover/Stego-image or a message with a different file format. The term Steganography has been
derived from two Greek words Steganos and Graphia, where Steganos means covered or secret
and Graphia means writing or drawing. So Steganography is covered writing.
I. Working of Steganography
Some terms which are used in Steganography are:
Cover Image: The medium in which information is to be hidden. It may be an audio, video,
image or a text file.
Stego-image: A medium within which information is hidden.
Message: The data to be hidden or to be extracted.
Key: Its a secret value which help in encoding or extraction of data, without which data cannot
be encode and extract.
For Steganography we must have some message to be embedded and a cover image in which
message is to be hid. The chosen cover image can be of any size-8 bit format or of 18 bit, 24 bit, 32
bit, 36 bit and can be in any format either jpeg, gif, bmp, png etc. Larger the size of the image it is
easier to hide the message and much bigger message can be hidden, but sending large images on
the web will make it suspicious. We must have a key which is used to select the random pixels on
which data is to be hidden. Now by using three of these formats, a Stego image is generated which
is send to another person. Now on the receiver side the Stego image is processed and extraction of
message takes place by the help of a secret key. The key is the one by which receiver knows the
position of the pixel on which message is embedded.
Although Steganography is an ancient subject, the modern formulation of it is often given in terms
of the prisoners problem proposed by Simmons [1], where two inmates wish to communicate in
secret to hatch an escape plan. All of their communication passes through a warden who will throw
them in solitary confinement should she suspect any covert communication [2]. The warden, who is
free to examine all communication exchanged between the inmates, can either be passive or active.
A passive warden simply examines the communication to try and determine if it potentially
contains secret information. If she suspects a communication to contain hidden information, a
passive warden takes note of the detected covert communication, reports this to some outside party
and lets the message through without blocking it. An active warden, on the other hand, will try to
alter the communication with the suspected hidden information deliberately, in order to remove the
information [3].

II. Classification of Steganography

Text-based Steganography - In which the message to be sent is embedded in a text file by

formatting it based on line-shift coding, word-shift coding, feature coding, Caesar Coding etc.
Reformatting of the text destroys the embedded content hence the technique is not robust.
Audio Steganography - Alters audio files so that they contain hidden messages. The techniques

are LSB manipulation, phase coding and echo hiding.

Image Steganography - Hides message in the images. This technique is the most popular

because of the fact that almost no perceivable changes occur. In images after hiding a large amount
of data it is sent with wide variety of available images. Depending on the data hidden in the pixels
directly or in the coefficients obtained after a suitable transform domain like FFT, DFT or DWT
leads to spatial domain Steganography and frequency domain Steganography. Some of the
commonly used methods of embedding payload in cover image are least Significant Bits (LSB)
substitution in which the LSBs of cover image pixel are altered to hide the payload and more data
can be hidden in edges.
Video Steganography - Video Steganography is a technique to hide any kind of files or

information into digital video format. Video (combination of pictures) is used as carrier for hidden
information. Generally discrete cosine transform (DCT) alter values (e.g., 8.667 to 9) which is used
to hide the information in each of the images in the video, which is not noticeable by the human
eye. Video Steganography uses formats such as H.264, Mp4, MPEG, AVI or other video format.

III. Techniques of Steganography

Spatial Domain Methods: There are many versions of spatial Steganography, all directly
change some bits in the image pixel values in hiding data. Least significant bit (LSB)-based
Steganography is one of the simplest techniques that hides a secret message in the LSBs of pixel
values without introducing many perceptible distortions. Changes in the value of the LSB are
unpredictable to human eyes,
Transform Domain Technique: This is a more complex way of hiding information in an image.
Transform domain embedding can be termed as a domain of embedding techniques for which a
number of algorithms have been suggested. The process of embedding data in the frequency
domain of a signal is much stronger than embedding principles that operate in the time domain.
Most of the strong steganographic systems today operate within the transform domain. The
advantage of this technique over spatial domain techniques is that they hide information in areas of
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the image that are less exposed to compression, cropping, and image processing. All transform
domain techniques are not dependent on the image format and they may run on lossless and lossy
format conversion.
Distortion Technique: In this technique the decoding process is based on the decoding function.
The decoding function checks difference between original cover image and the distorted cover
image to restore the secret message. In this a Stego- image is created by applying sequence of
modification to cover image. The message is encoded at some random chosen pixels. If the Stego
image is different from cover image at the given message pixel, the message bit is "1".otherwisw
message bit is "0".
Masking and Filtering: These techniques hide information by marking an image, in the same
way as to paper watermarks. These techniques embed the information in the more significant areas
than just hiding it into the noise level. The hidden message is more integral to the cover image.
Watermarking techniques can be applied without the fear of image destruction due to lossy
compression as they are more integrated into the image. Advantages of Masking and filtering
Techniques: This method is much more robust than LSB replacement with respect to compression
as information is hidden in visible part of the image.
IV. Image Steganography
In the domain of digital images many different image file formats exist, most of them for specific
applications. For these different image file formats, different Steganographic algorithms exist.
ImageAn image is a picture that has been created or copied and stored in electronic form. An image can
be described in terms of vector graphics or raster graphics. An image stored in raster form is
sometimes called a bitmap. An image map is a file containing information that associates different
locations on a specified image with hypertext links.
Image CompressionWhen working with larger images of greater bit depth, the images tend to become too large to
transmit over a standard Internet connection. In order to display an image in a reasonable amount
of time, techniques must be incorporated to reduce the images file size. These techniques make use
of mathematical formulas to analyze and condense image data, resulting in smaller file sizes. This
process is called compression [4].
Compression plays a very important role in choosing which steganographic algorithm to use. Lossy
compression techniques result in smaller image file sizes, but it increases the possibility that the
embedded message may be partly lost due to the fact that excess image data will be removed [5].
Lossless compression though, keeps the original digital image intact without the chance of lost,
although it does not compress the image to such a small file size [6].
Image Domain

Least significant bit (LSB)-based Steganography is one of the simplest techniques that hides a
secret message in the LSBs of pixel values without introducing many perceptible distortions.
Changes in the value of the LSB are unpredictable to human eyes,
Least Significant Bit
Least significant bit (LSB) insertion is a common, simple approach to embedding information in a
cover image. The least significant bit (in other words, the 8th bit) of some or all of the bytes inside
an image is changed to a bit of the secret message. When using a 24-bit image, a bit of each of the
red, green and blue color components can be used, since they are each represented by a byte. In
other words, one can store 3 bits in each pixel. An 800 600 pixel image, can thus store a total
amount of 1,440,000 bits or 180,000 bytes of embedded data.
For example a grid for 3 pixels of a 24-bit image can be as follows:
(00101101 00011100 11011100)
(10100110 11000100 00001100)
(11010010 10101101 01100011)
When the number 200, which binary representation is 11001000, is embedded into the least
significant bits of this part of the image, the resulting grid is as follows:
(00101101 00011101 11011100)
(10100110 11000111 00001100)
(11010010 10101100 01100011)
Although the number was embedded into the first 8 bytes of the grid, only the 3 underlined bits
needed to be changed according to the embedded message. On average, only half of the bits in an
image will need to be modified to hide a secret message using the maximum cover size. Since there
are 256 possible intensities of each primary color, changing the LSB of a pixel results in small
changes in the intensity of the colors. These changes cannot be perceived by the human eye - thus
the message is successfully hidden. With a well-chosen image, one can even hide the message in
the least as well as second to least significant bit and still not see the difference [6].
In the above example, consecutive bytes of the image data from the first byte to the end of the
message are used to embed the information. This approach is very easy to detect. A slightly more
secure system is for the sender and receiver to share a secret key that specifies only certain pixels
to be changed. Should an adversary suspect that LSB Steganography has been used, he has no way
of knowing which pixels to target without the secret key.

In its simplest form, LSB makes use of BMP images, since they use lossless compression.
Unfortunately to be able to hide a secret message inside a BMP file, one would require a very large
cover image. Nowadays, BMP images of 800 600 pixels are not often used on the Internet and
might arouse suspicion. For this reason, LSB Steganography has also been developed for use with
other image file formats.
V. Applications of Steganography
Copyright Protection: A secret copyright notice can be embedded inside an image to identify it
as intellectual property. In addition, when an image is sold or distributed an identification of the
recipient and time stamp can be embedded to identify potential pirates. A watermark can also serve
to detect whether the image has been subsequently modified.
Feature Tagging: Captions, annotations, time stamps, and other descriptive elements can be
embedded inside an image, such as the names of individuals in a photo or locations in a map.
Copying the stego-image also copies all of the embedded features and only parties who possess the
decoding stego-key will be able to extract and view the features.
Secret Communications: In many situations, transmitting a cryptographic message draws
unwanted attention. The use of cryptographic technology may be restricted or forbidden by law.
However, the use of stenography does not advertise covert communication and therefore avoids
scrutiny of the sender, message, and recipient. A trade secret, blueprint, or other sensitive I
formation can be transmitted without alerting potential attackers or eavesdroppers.
Digital Watermark: A digital watermark is a kind of marker covertly embedded in a noisetolerant signal such as audio or image data. It is typically used to identify ownership of the
copyright of such signal.
Use by terrorists: Steganography on a large scale used by terrorists, who hide their secret
messages in innocent, cover sources to spread terrorism across the country. It come in concern that
terrorists using Steganography when the two articles titled Terrorist instructions hidden online
and Terror groups hide behind Web encryption were published in newspaper.

Proposed Approach
In our approach we first try to convert the secret message into ciphered text using a cryptography
algorithm, here we go for RSA algorithm to improve the secrecy of the message. Then a Hash
Function is used to determine the position for each LSB inserted bit in the image.
First of all we select a true color image of size 512 x 512 for to it as a cover image and a secret message which will be
embedded in the cover image.

Hash-LSB (Least Significant Bit) Process

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The Hash based Least Significant Bit (H-LSB) technique for Steganography in which position of
LSB for hiding the secret data is determined using hash function. Hash function finds the positions
of least significant bit of each RGB pixels and then message bits are embedded into these RGB
pixels independently. Then hash function returns hash values according to the least significant bits
present in RGB pixel values. The cover image will be broken down or fragmented into RGB
format. Then the Hash LSB technique will uses the values given by hash function to embed or
conceal the data. In this technique the secret message is converted into binary form as binary bits;
each 8 bits at a time are embedded in least significant bits of RGB pixel values of cover image in
the order of 3, 3, and 2 respectively. According to this method 3 bits are embedded in red pixel
LSB, 3 bits are embedded in green pixel LSB and 2 bits are embedded in blue pixel LSB as
illustrated in Fig. 2. These 8 bits are inserted in this order because the chromatic influence of blue
color to the human eye is more than red and green colors. Therefore the distribution pattern
chooses the 2 bits to be hidden in blue pixel. Thus the quality of the image will be not sacrificed.
Following formula is used to detect positions to hide data in LSB of each RGB pixels of the cover
image [2].
k = p % n ... (1)
Where, k is the LSB bit position within the pixel; p represents the position of each hidden image
pixel and n is the number of bits of LSB which is 4 for the present case. After embedding the data
in cover image, a Stego image will be produced. The recipient of this image has to use the hash
function again to extract the positions where the data has been stored. The extracted information
will be in cipher text. After decryption of it, combining of bits into information will produce the
secret message as required by the receiver.

RSA Encryption and Hash-LSB Encoding

This approach of image steganography is using RSA encryption technique to encrypt the secret
data. Encryption includes a message or a file encryption for converting it into the cipher text.
Encryption process will use recipient public key to encrypt secret data. It provides security by

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converting secret data into a cipher text, which will be difficult for any intruder to decrypt it
without the recipient private key. At the start of this process we take cipher text encrypted from the
secret message to be embedded in the cover image. In this process first we converted cipher text
into binary form to convert it into bits. Then by using hash function it will select the positions and
then 8 bits of message at a time will be embedded in the order of 3, 3, and 2 in red, green and blue
channel respectively. The process is continued till entire message of bits will got embedded into the
cover image
Embedding Algorithm:
Step 1: Choose the cover image & secret message.
Step 2: Encrypt the message using RSA algorithm.
Step 3: Find 4 least significant bits of each RGB pixels from cover image.
Step 4: Apply a hash function on LSB of cover image to get the position.
Step 5: Embed eight bits of the encrypted message into 4 bits of LSB of RGB pixels of cover image
in the order of 3, 3 and 2 respectively using the position obtained from hash function given in
equation 1.
Step 6: Send Stego image to receiver.

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Hash-LSB Decoding and RSA Decryption

In the decoding process we have again used the hash function to detect the positions of the LSBs
where the data bits had been embedded. When the position of the bits had been specified, the bits
are then extracted from the position in the same order as they were embedded. At the end of this
process we will get the message in binary form which again converted into decimal form, and with
same process we got the cipher text message. After retrieving the positions of LSBs that contain
secret data, the receiver will decrypt secret data using RSA algorithm. To apply RSA algorithm
receiver will use his/her private key because the secret data have been encrypted by recipient public
key. Using receiver private key cipher text will be converted into original message which is in
readable form.
Retrieval Algorithm:

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Step 1: Receive a Stego image.

Step 2: Find 4 LSB bits of each RGB pixels from Stego image.
Step 3: Apply hash function to get the position of LSBs with hidden data.
Step 4: Retrieve the bits using these positions in order of 3, 3, and 2 respectively.
Step 5: Apply RSA algorithm to decrypt the retrieved data. Step 6: Finally read the secret message.

The objective of the work have been implemented an image Steganography technique using HashLSB (Least Significant Bit) method with RSA algorithm to improve the security of the data hiding

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technique. This technique is a combination of one steganographic technique and one cryptographic
technique which enhances the security of data and data hiding technique. Our implemented HashLSB technique on images is used to hide information in the RGB pixels value of the cover image in
the form of 3, 3, and 2 bit order and positions to hide the data bits have been calculated by hash
function. The use of RSA algorithm has made our technique more secure for open channel. RSA
algorithm has been used with Hash-LSB so that the original text will be embedded into cover
image in the form of cipher text.
The Hash-LSB technique has been applied to true color images and which gives satisfactory
results. The performance of the Hash-LSB technique has been evaluated and graphically
represented on the basis of two measures are Mean Square Error (MSE) and Peak Signal to Noise
Ratio (PSNR) and obtained values are much better than existing techniques. The technique called
A Secure Steganography Based on RSA Algorithm and Hash-LSB Technique has been
implemented on MATLAB tool by analyzing four color images of size 512 x 512 tiff format as
selected to hide a fixed size of secret data. In this process Stego-image is generated using HashLSB and RSA encryption which carried out to enhance the security of hidden data.
The results for all stego images using Hash-LSB with RSA technique have been compared to
simple LSB substitution with RSA technique which gives very lesser MSE values and higher
PSNR values. The Mean Square Error (MSE) and Peak Signal to Noise Ratio (PSNR) [2] between
the stego image and its corresponding cover image have been studied and given below as eq. 2 and
3.
=1 , , =12 ... (2) Where, MSE is Mean Square Error, H and W are
height, width and P (i, j) which represents the cover image and S (i, j) represents its corresponding
stego image.
=10 10 2 .. (3) Where, PSNR is peak signal to noise ratio, L is peak signal
level for a color image have been taken as 255. In this technique of image steganography eight bits
of data are embedded in 3 pixels of the cover image. The mean square error (MSE) and the peak
signal to noise ratio (PSNR) for different stego images are shown in the Table I. By comparing the
PSNR values of all the stego images, it has been analyzed that only Lenna as a cover image have
given the best PSNR value. The same is true in the case for the MSE values while comparing with
different stego images, Lenna as a cover image have given the least MSE value.

Comparison Between LSB AND H-LSB

15

The graphical representation of PSNR values of different stego images. The horizontal axis shows
the stego images and vertical shows the range of PSNR value in decibel. The blue line shows the
PSNR values of LSB with RSA technique and the red line shows the PSNR values of H-LSB with
RSA. The PSNR values for LSB with RSA are lesser than the PSNR values of H-LSB with RSA as
compared in both figures.

The graphical representation of MSE values of different stego images. The horizontal axis shows
the stego images and vertical shows the range of MSE value. The blue line shows the MSE values
of LSB with RSA technique and the red line shows the MSE values of H-LSB with RSA technique.
The MSE values for LSB with RSA are higher than the MSE values of H-LSB with RSA as
compared in both figures.

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An efficient steganographic method for embedding secret messages into cover images without
producing any major changes has been accomplished through Hash-LSB method. In this work, a
new way of hiding information in an image with less variation in image bits have been created,
which makes our technique secure and more efficient. This technique also applies a cryptographic
method i.e.
RSA algorithm to secure the secret message so that it is not easy to break the encryption without
the key. RSA algorithm itself is very secure thats why we used in this technique to increase the
security of the secret message. A specified embedding technique uses hash function and also
provide encryption of data uses RSA algorithm; makes our technique a very much usable and
trustworthy to send information over any unsecure channel or internet. The H-LSB technique have
been applied to .tiff images; however it can work with any other formats with minor procedural
modification like for compressed images. Performance analysis of the developed technique have
been evaluated by comparing it with simple LSB technique, which have resulted a very good MSE
and PSNR values for the stego images. The future scope for the proposed method might be the
development of an enhanced steganography that can have the authentication module along with
encryption and decryption. Meanwhile the work can be enhanced for other data files like video,
audio, text. Similarly the steganography technique can be developed for 3D images. The further
work may contain combination of this method to message digesting algorithms.

Conclusion and Future Scope

17

Steganography can be used for hidden communication. To enhance the image Steganographic
system using LSB approach to provide a means of secure communication. A Stego-key has been
applied to the system during embedment of the message into the cover-image. In our proposed
approach, the message bits are embedded randomly into the cover-image pixels instead of
sequentially. Finally, we have shown that Steganography that uses a key has a better security than
non-key Steganography. This is so because without the knowledge of the valid key, it is difficult for
a third party or malicious people to recover the embedded message. However there are still some
issues need to be tackled to implement LSB on a digital image as a cover-object using random
pixels.
Future work would be to extend the system to be more robust and efficient. The research will
include the enhancement of the algorithm that will utilize the entire image for embedding the
message. To analyze the processing time, and to generate the random number and introduce
method(s) to minimize the time.

References

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1. Simmons, G., The prisoners problem and the subliminal channel,

CRYPTO, 1983
2. Chandramouli, R., Kharrazi, M. & Memon, N., Image Steganography
and Steganalysis: Concepts and Practice, Proceedings of the 2nd
International Workshop on Digital Watermarking, October 2003
3. Anderson, R.J. & Petitcolas, F.A.P., On the limits of Steganography,
IEEE Journal of selected Areas in Communications, May 1998
4. Reference guide: Graphics Technical Options and Decisions,
http://www.devx.com/projectcool/Article/19997
5. Dunbar, B., Steganographic techniques and their use in an OpenSystems environment, SANS Institute, January 2002
6. Johnson, N.F. & Jajodia, S., Exploring Steganography: Seeing the
Unseen, Computer Journal, February 1998.
7.

AN OVERVIEW OF IMAGE STEGANOGRAPHY [T. Morkel 1, J.H.P. Eloff 2, M.S.

Olivier 3],Information and Computer Security Architecture (ICSA) Research Group,
Department of Computer Science ,University of Pretoria, 0002, Pretoria, South Africa

8. A Review on Image Steganography [Rashi Singh 1, Gaurav Chawla 2],Student

Associate Professor ,Deptt. Of Comp. Sc. & Engg. Deptt. Of Comp. Sc.& Engg.
[G.I.T.M, Gurgaon, India G.I.T.M, Gurgaon, India]
9. INFORMATION HIDING USING STEGANOGRAPHY [MUHALIM MOHAMED
AMIN 1, SUBARIAH IBRAHIM 2, MAZLEENA SALLEH 3, MOHD ROZI
KATMIN 4] Department of Computer System & Communication Faculty of
Computer Science and Information system UNIVERSITI TEKNOLOGI MALAYSIA2010
10. Steganographic techniques and their use in an Open-Systems environment,
[Dunbar, B.] SANS Institute-January 2002.
11. Exploring Steganography: Seeing the Unseen, [Johnson, N.F. & Jajodia, S.]
Computer Journal-February 1998
12. Volume 3, Issue 7, July 2013

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International Journal of Advanced Research in Computer Science and Software

Engineering A Secure Image Steganography Based on RSA Algorithm and Hash-LSB
Technique Anil Kumar *, Rohini Sharma Department of IT, M.M.E.C., Maharishi
Markandeshwar University (MMU), Mullana, India

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