VISVESVARAYA TECHNOLOGICAL UNIVERSITY

Jnana Sangama, Belagavi, Karnataka- 590 018

Synopsis
Of
TITLE
Submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the reward of the degree of

Bachelor of Engineering in

ELECTRONICS AND COMMUNICATION

Submitted by
Name 1 1BI16EC044
Name 2 1BI16EC026
Name 3 1BI16EC046
Name 4 1BI16EC047

Under the Guidance of

Guide Name
Designation
Dept. of ECE, BIT

Department of Electronics & Communication Engineering

BANGALORE INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY

i
 CONTENTS

ABSTRACT
INTRODUCTION
LITERATURE SURVEY
AIM
OBJECTIVE
PROPOSED ALGORITHM
BLOCK DIAGRAMS
ALGORITHM EXPLANATION
APPLICATION
CONCLUSION
REFERENCE

i
A Secure Model for Data Embedding in Digital Images 2020-21

ABSTRACT

Security and integrity are the two most important aspects in the steganographic technique. In
this project, we have proposed an algorithm of hiding a message in cover image. To achieve
this, three levels of encryption is implemented, namely Back Addition Encryption, Advanced
Encryption Standard and Division Method Encryption. This encrypted data serves as the input
for the steganographic algorithm, so by adding the both methods of cryptography and
steganography the need for the security is given and it makes the attempts of cryptanalyst to
get the data or message usless.

Department of Electronics and Communication Engineering, B.I.T Page 1

A Secure Model for Data Embedding in Digital Images 2020-21

INTRODUCTION

In today’s digitized world, the importance and the value exchanged data over the internet or
other media types are increasing, the search for the best solution to offer the necessary
protection against the data thieves attacking, along with providing these services under timely
mannered is on e of the most active subjects in the security communities.

In order to maintain the secrecy of a message, the existence of the data is concealed, this
is accomplished by the process of steganography. Using this technique we hide the secret data
into a digital medium (ex., Image, audio and video), so that its presence is not known by other
people.

An added layer of security is required to enhance the security, to achieve this the
appearance of the message is transformed into an unintelligible format, this is known as
cryptography. There are two categories of cryptography depending on the type of security key
used .

These two categories are:

1. Symmetric key cryptography: when the same secret key is used to encrypt an
ddecrypt the message. It is also known as private key cryptography
2. Asymmetric key cryptography: when two keys namely a public and a private key is
used to encrypt and decrypt the message. Here the public key is known to all receivers
but the private key is known to only the one who generates the key. It is also known
as public key cryptography

To provide double protection of data or message , we have applied encryption using the
technique of advanced encryption standard algorithm . Along with this we have incorporated
two more levels of security to ensure a stronger message encryption system, thereby
minimizing the chances of messages being dechiphered by unauthorized personnel.

Department of Electronics and Communication Engineering, B.I.T Page 2

A Secure Model for Data Embedding in Digital Images 2020-21

The security for the data will be given by embedding of data in image but if the data is
encrypted even before the data is embedded then it gives more security for the data from the
attacks which could from the external threats , but the security is given with double encryption
so that the data will be much more secured and it becomes impossible for the cryptanalyst for
the getting of data from him or from her . So the abstract describes the security of data by
embedding data which is encrypted two times and is further embedded in the image.

Department of Electronics and Communication Engineering, B.I.T Page 3

A Secure Model for Data Embedding in Digital Images 2020-21

LITERATURE SURVEY
In order to get a foothold and basic understanding of the idea of our proposed project, we
needed to review and analyse previously published technical papers in the domain of
cryptography and steganography. The list below presents the details about the major such
papers.

1. Proposing of developed advanced encryption standard AES A.M.Sagheer et al.,(2017)

ABSTRACT: AES is a well known block cipher that has several advantages in
data encryption. However it is not suitable for real time applications, they present
modified AES(MAES) to reflect high level security and better image encryption. The
modification is done by adjusting the shift row transformation.
CONCLUSION: This modifications allows for greater security and increased
performance. MAES gives better encryption results in terms of security.

2. A Secure Triple level encryption method using Cryptography and Steganography ,

S.Usha et al.,(2017)
ABSTRACT: Threats from intruders are very great such that usage of
cryptography and steganography separately may not provide the intended protection,
hence both the techniques may be combined. Instead of using a single level data
encryption, the message is encrypted twice and then hidden in an image.
CONCLUSION: The technique combines the feature f both Steganography and
which will provide higher security. The length of the plain text is also encrypted and
sent which provides greater advantage for receiver in order to check the correctness of
the decrypted data.

3. A Comparative study of the performance and security issues of AES RSA

Cryptography, Abdullah Al Hasib et al., (2017)

ABSTRACT:AES and RSA algorithms are the two popular encryption

schemes that gurantee confidently and authentication over an insecure communication
channel . There has been trifling cryptanalystic progress against these two algorithms

Department of Electronics and Communication Engineering, B.I.T Page 4

A Secure Model for Data Embedding in Digital Images 2020-21

since their advent. This paper presents fundamental mathematics behind the AES and
RSA with brief description and security aspects of the two widely revised encryption
schemes.

CONCLUSION: Since RSA has more functionality and AES is much faster , it is
better to combine these two , asymmetric cryptography can be used to authenticate the
parties and to agree on a key for symmetric encryption. Large data blocks are encrypted
using faster AES algorithm rather than slower RSA and safely distributed using RSA
algorithm.

Department of Electronics and Communication Engineering, B.I.T Page 5

A Secure Model for Data Embedding in Digital Images 2020-21

AIM
To combine the process of cryptography and steganography to provide multilevel security.

OBJECTIVE
To develop a secure method of digital message security such that it has a feature of easy
encryption and decryption by authorized personnel while it makes the efforts of cryptanalyst
useless.

Department of Electronics and Communication Engineering, B.I.T Page 6

A Secure Model for Data Embedding in Digital Images 2020-21

PROPOSED ALGORITHM

The Algorithm that we have proposed consists primarily of image steganography

with three levels of security .The text message is first encrypted using a back addition
encryption algorithm. The consequent output is then fed into the popular encryption algorithm
AES. The AES output, by the use of a division technique is further scrambled. This intern is
supplied into the cover image using the image steganographic method. This method
implements the LSB technique for embedding data into image.

The method used for encrypting is where the same method is used for decrypting the
recovered message , here the steganographic methods give the advantage of not letting to know
the existence of message or data ,and also the message or data is encrypted by the other two
encrypted methods, but in between this two level encryption and the steganographic method
we are using a method of division algorithm which further gives third level of security to the
message or data to be sent.

The steganography done here is by LSB technique, and where we take an image
which pixel is represented by 8bits and so that in every pixel it can vary the intensity level to
256 different levels, and if only the LSB that is least significant bit of the image is varied it
may not give severe effect to the image. The image after the modification is called as STEGO
IMAGE and so the same image if decrypted at receiver gives the original encrypted data which
if further decrypted two times gives original raw message or data.

Department of Electronics and Communication Engineering, B.I.T Page 7

A Secure Model for Data Embedding in Digital Images 2020-21

Block Diagram At Transmitter

So at transmitter as if in main algorithm, it has two methods for encrypting the data, the first
method is back addition, which is explained further, and it has the second encrypting method
which is AES, which is the complex method for encrypting, which is usually used alone to do
the effort but we are using it after the prior using of back addition method so provide multilevel
security even in the encrypting process of message but even without so doing the
steganographic methods of LSB.

Department of Electronics and Communication Engineering, B.I.T Page 8

 A Secure Model for Data Embedding in Digital Images 2020-21

BACK ADDITION METHOD

The level one encryption for AES must be simple yet elegant. This method allows for
such simplicity. Each input data depends on the previous value of input data.

The following define simplicity of Back Addition encryption, No keys are required,
simple to code, the rules can be defined by user hence randomness exist.

Consider a message “MEETING”

Mmod26  M

E + 2M mod26  C

E + 3C mod26  K

T + 4K mod26  H

I + 5H mod26  R

N + 6R mod26  L

G + 7L mod26  F

So “MEETING” is encoded as “MCKHRLF”.

So by this example we could understand how simple it is and the advantage here is that it
requires no extra key for encryption, which clears the burden of sending again the key used for
this simple Back Addition encryption method.

Department of Electronics and Communication Engineering, B.I.T Page 9

A Secure Model for Data Embedding in Digital Images 2020-21

ADVANCED ENCRYPTION STANDARDS METHOD (AES)

The Rijndael proposal for AES define a cipher in which the block length and the key length
can be independently specified to be 128, 192, or 256 bits. The AES specification uses the
same three key size alternatives but limits the block length to 128 bits. A number of AES
parameters depend on the key length. In the description of this section, we assume a key length
of 128 bits, which is likely to be the one most commonly implemented.

Rijndael was designed to have the following characteristics :

a. Resistance against all known attacks

b. Speed and code compactness on a wide range of platforms
c. Design simplicity

The input to the encryption and decryption algorithms of a single 128 bit block. In FIPS
PUB 197, this block is depicted as a square matrix of bytes. This block is copied into the state
array, which is modified at each stage of encryption or decryption. After the final stage, state
is copied to an output matrix. These operations are depicted. Similarly, the 128 bit key is
depicted as a square matrix of bytes. This key is then expanded into an array of key scheduled
words; each word is four bytes and the total key schedule is 44 word s for the 128 bit key. Note
that the ordering of bytes within a matrix is by column. So, for example, the first four bytes of
128bit plain text input to the encryption cipher occupy the first column of the in matrix, the
second four bytes occupy the second column, and so on. Similarly, the first four bytes of the
expanded key, which form a word, occupy the first column of the w matrix.

Before delving into details, we can make several comments about the overall AES
structure: one noteworthy feature of this structure is that it is not a feistel structure. Recall that
in the classic feistel structure, half of the data block is used to modify the other half of the
datablock and then the halves are swapped. Two of the AES finalists, including Rijndael, do
not use a feistel structure but process the entire data block in parallel during each round using
substitutions and permutations, the key that is provided as input is expanded into an array of

Department of Electronics and Communication Engineering, B.I.T Page 10

A Secure Model for Data Embedding in Digital Images 2020-21

44-32-bit words, w[i]. Four distinct words (128bits) serves as round key for each round. As per
our block diagram, we want input to the AES block and it also want a key for it, and this key
will be equally shared and used at decrypting part and the data is encrypted

DIVISION METHOD ENCRYPTION

The third level of scrambling is done using Division Method Encryption. So for the division
method we are using a pseudorandom generator which generates a random number which is
used as divisor in the method and also we are getting the encrypted data from the AES block
which is used as dividend and this produces a quotient and remainder which is used in Image
steganography, so that this divisor, quotient and remainder will be the data or input to the
Image steganography block .

So the divisor, quotient and remainder input is embedded in the stego image .

Department of Electronics and Communication Engineering, B.I.T Page 11

A Secure Model for Data Embedding in Digital Images 2020-21

IMAGE STEGANOGRAPHY

As the name suggests, Image Steganography refers to the process of hiding data
within an image file. The image selected for this purpose is called the cover-image and the
image obtained after steganography is called the stego-image.
How is it done?
An image is represented as an N*M (in case of greyscale images) or N*M*3 (in
case of colour images) matrix in memory, with each entry representing the intensity value of
a pixel. In image steganography, a message is embedded into an image by altering the values
of some pixels, which are chosen by an encryption algorithm. The recipient of the image
must be aware of the same algorithm in order to known which pixels he or she must select to
extract the message.

Department of Electronics and Communication Engineering, B.I.T Page 12

A Secure Model for Data Embedding in Digital Images 2020-21

Detection of the message within the cover-image is done by the process of steganalysis . This
can be done through comparison with the cover image, histogram plotting, or by noise
detection. While efforts are being invested in developing new algorithms with a greater degree
of immunity against such attacks, efforts are also being devoted towards improving existing
algorithms for steganalysis, to detect exchange of secret information between terrorists or
criminal elements.

Digital image structure

To understand this technique, a few reminders of some digital imaging basics might be useful.

 A digital image is composed of (X) rows by (Y) columns.

 The point of coordinates ([a,b]) with a<X) and b<Y\), is called a pixel.
The pixel represents the smallest addressable element of a picture.
 Each pixel is associated with a color, usually decomposed in three primary colors: Red,
Green, Blue. A pixel can then be specified as pixel(Red, Green, Blue), that’s what we
call the RGB model.
 Red, Green and Blue intensities can vary from 0 to 255.
 WHITE = (255,255,255) and BLACK = (0,0,0).
 A pixel take 3 bytes of memory, 1 for each primary component (hence the maximum value
of 255).
 A byte consists of 8 bits, representing a binary number (example: 1010 0101).
 The highest value a byte can take is 1111 1111, which is equal to 255 in decimal.

LSB Principle
Now that you have the structure of a digital image in mind, we can start talking about the
serious stuff.

As its name suggests, the Least Significant Bit technique is based on hiding information in the
least significant bit of each byte of the picture. There are multiple variants of LSB but, in this
article, we will set the focus on the most common one.

Department of Electronics and Communication Engineering, B.I.T Page 13

A Secure Model for Data Embedding in Digital Images 2020-21

The notion of “Least Significant Bit” probably doesn’t speak to everyone so I’ll explain it.
Let’s take the following representation of a byte, where the weight is annotated below each
bit:

The first bit on the left is the “heaviest” one since it’s the one that has the biggest influence on
the value of the byte. Its weight is 128.

Now look at the bit on the very right. Its weight is 1 and it has a very minor impact on the value
of the byte. In a way, this bit is the least significant bit of this byte.

Why do we modify this very specific bit?

Well, simply because it’s the least significant one. Let me explain:

The following diagram illustrates the color difference when the least significant bit of the red
channel is modified.

It makes no much difference here just by changing the X bit from 255 to 254 which is
Least Significant Bit Image steganography method.

Department of Electronics and Communication Engineering, B.I.T Page 14

A Secure Model for Data Embedding in Digital Images 2020-21

Block Diagram at Receiver

This is the block diagram for the receiver section and so that if noticed it is exact same as
of transmitter section but if observed it has multiplication module instead of division module
so that after getting the data from the image it is given to the multiplication block, and here
from divisor, quotient and remainder we can get the dividend used at earlier case so that after
getting this it is given to AES decryption block and is further decrypted by back addition
decryption method and we get the original data or message.

Department of Electronics and Communication Engineering, B.I.T Page 15

A Secure Model for Data Embedding in Digital Images 2020-21

APPLICATIONS OF CRYPTOGRAPHY AND STEGANOGRAPHY

Secrecy in Transmission

Most current secrecy systems for transmission use a private key system for transforming
transmitted information because it is the fastest method that operates with reasonable assurance
and low overhead.

If the number of communicating parties is small, key distribution is done periodically with a
courier service and key maintenence is based on physical security of the keys over the period
of use and destruction after new keys are distributed.

Secrecy in Storage

Secrecy in storage is usually maintained by a one-key system where the user provides the key
to the computer at the beginning of a session, and the system then takes care of encryption and
decryption throughout the course of normal use. As an example, many hardware devices are
available for personal computers to automatically encrypt all information stored on disk. When
the computer is turned on, the user must supply a key to the encryption hardware. The
information cannot be read meaningfully without this key, so even if the disk is stolen, the
information on it will not be useable.

Integrity in Transmission

Many of the users of communication systems are not as much concerned about secrecy as about
integrity. In an electronic funds transfer, the amount sent from one account to another is often
public knowledge. What the bank cares about is that only proper transfers can take place. If an
active tapper could introduce a false transfer, funds would be moved illicitly. An error in a
single bit could literally cause millions of dollars to be erroneously credited or debited.
Cryptographic techniques are widely used to assure that intentional or accidental modification
of transmitted information does not cause erroneous actions to take place.

Department of Electronics and Communication Engineering, B.I.T Page 16

A Secure Model for Data Embedding in Digital Images 2020-21

Authentication of Identity

Authenticating the identity of individuals or systems to each other has been a problem for a
very long time. Simple passwords have been used for thousands of years to prove identity.
More complex protocols such as sequences of keywords exchanged between sets of parties are
often shown in the movies or on television.

Electronic Signatures

Electronic signatures, like their physical counterparts, are a means of providing a legally
binding transaction between two or more parties. To be as useful as a physical signature,
electronic signatures must be at least as hard to forge, at least as easy to use, and accepted in a
court of law as binding upon all parties to the transaction.

Electronic Cash

There are patents under force throughout the world today to allow electronic information to
replace cash money for financial transactions between individuals. Such a system involves
using cryptography to keep the assets of nations in electronic form. Clearly the ability to forge
such a system would allow national economies to be destroyed in an instant. The pressure for
integrity in such a system is staggaring.

Access control system for digital contents distribution

In this area embedded data is "hidden", but is "explained" to publicize the content.

Today, digital contents are getting more and more commonly distributed over Internet than
before. For example, music companies release new albums on their Webpage in a free or
charged manner. However, in this case, all the contents are equally distributed to the people
who can make access to the page. So, an ordinary Web distribution scheme is not suited for a
"case-by-case" and "selective" distribution. Of course it is always possible to attach digital
contents to e-mail messages and send them to the customers. But it will takes a lot of cost in
time and labor.

Department of Electronics and Communication Engineering, B.I.T Page 17

A Secure Model for Data Embedding in Digital Images 2020-21

Media Database systems

In this application area of steganography secrecy is not important, but unifying two types of
data into one is the most important.

Media data (photo picture, movie, music, etc.) have some association with other information.
A photo picture, for instance, may have the following.

(1) The title of the picture and some physical object information
(2) The date and the time when the picture was taken
(3) The camera and the photographer's information

Department of Electronics and Communication Engineering, B.I.T Page 18

A Secure Model for Data Embedding in Digital Images 2020-21

CONCLUSION
It is important to build security systems and networks in such a way that the user is not
constantly remained of the security system around him.
The proposal aims at combining steganography and cryptography technique, to
provide a hybrid approach, to be successfully done without reducing the quality of used
cover media.

Even If the system is attacked, the chance of the intruder to predict the pattern will be
difficult as the secrete message is embedded with dual protection.

So combing Cryptography and Steganography it helps in secure transmission of data.

Department of Electronics and Communication Engineering, B.I.T Page 19

A Secure Model for Data Embedding in Digital Images 2020-21

REFERENCES

[1] Fateme Siar, Saeid Alirezazadeh, Fateme Jalali " A Novel Steganography Approach
Based on Ant Colony Optimization", 2018 6th Iranian Joint Congress on Fuzzy and Intelligent
Systems (CFIS-2018), Vol. 3, Issue. 1, pp.95 – 99, 2018

[2] Seyed Hossein Kamali, Reza Shakerian, Maysam Hedayati " A new modified version
of AES based algorithm for image encryption" 2018 International Conference on Electronics
and Information Engineering (ICEIE 2018), Vol. 4, Issue. 3, pp.161 – 165, 2018

[3] S Usha, Sathish Kumar, K Boopathybagan " A Secure Triple level encryption method
using Cryptography and Steganography " 2017 International Conference on Computer Science
and Network Technology (ICCSNT-2017), Vol. 2, Issue. 1, pp.74 – 79, 2017

[4] May H.Abood " An Efficient Image Cryptography using Hash LSB Steganography
with RC4 and pixel shuffling Encryption algorithms", 2017 Annual Conference on New Trends
in Information & Communications Technology Applications-(NTICT'2017), Vol. 3, Issue. 2,
pp.32 – 35, 2017

[5] Shilpa Goyal, Maninder Singh Nehra " Texture based video steganography technique
using block-wise encryption ", 2017 13th International Conference on Signal-Image
Technology & Internet-Based Systems (SITIS), Vol. 2, Issue. 1, pp.155 – 160, 2017.

[6] Abdullah Al Hasib, Abul Ahsan Md. Mahmudul Haque " A Comparative study of the
Performance and security issues of AES and RSA Cryptography " Third 2008 International
Conference on Convergence and Hybrid Information Technology, Vol. 5, Issue. 2, pp.91 – 95,
2008

[7] Rini Indrayani, Hanung Adi Nugroho “Increasing the security of MP3 Steganography
Using AES Encryption and MD5 Hash function” , 2016 2nd International Conference on
Science and Technology-Computer (ICST), Yogyakarta, Vol. 4, Issue. 2, pp.107 – 112, 2016,
Indonesia.

[8] Javaid A. Kaw, Shabir A. Parah, G. Mohiuddin Bhat " A new reversible stenographic
technique based on Pixel Repetition Method (PRM) and Special Data Shifting (SDS)", 2017

Department of Electronics and Communication Engineering, B.I.T Page 20

A Secure Model for Data Embedding in Digital Images 2020-21

Fourth International Conference on Image Information Processing (ICIIP), Vol. 4, Issue. 2,

pp.105 – 1095, 2017

[9] Kripa N Bangera, Yashika Paddambail, Dr.N.V. Subba Reddy " Multilayer Security
Using RSA Cryptography and Dual Audio Steganography ", 2017 2nd IEEE International
Conference On Recent Trends in Electronics Information & Communication Technology
(RTEICT), May 19-20, 2017, India

Department of Electronics and Communication Engineering, B.I.T Page 21