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Chapter 9-Data Hiding and Steganography

This document provides an overview of data hiding and steganography. It defines steganography as imperceptibly embedding information within a medium. The document discusses how steganography differs from cryptography in hiding the existence of data rather than encrypting messages. It also compares steganography to watermarking. The document outlines various types of digital steganography, including hiding messages in text, images, audio and network packets. It concludes by discussing steganalysis and the importance of steganography techniques being undetectable and robust.

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35 views24 pages

Chapter 9-Data Hiding and Steganography

This document provides an overview of data hiding and steganography. It defines steganography as imperceptibly embedding information within a medium. The document discusses how steganography differs from cryptography in hiding the existence of data rather than encrypting messages. It also compares steganography to watermarking. The document outlines various types of digital steganography, including hiding messages in text, images, audio and network packets. It concludes by discussing steganalysis and the importance of steganography techniques being undetectable and robust.

Uploaded by

elenacharlsblack
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PPTX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
You are on page 1/ 24

Data Privacy

Lecture 14: Data Hiding and Steganography


References:
Data Privacy and Security, Salomon
Agenda

 Introduction to Data Hiding


 Steganography and Cryptography
 Steganography and Watermarking
 Types of Digital Steganography
 Network Steganography
 Steganalysis

2
Introduction

 Steganography is the art of data hiding by embedding


information within a medium in an imperceptible way
 Steganography means "covered/secret writing"
 From greak words steganos: secret , graphy: writing
 Information can be hidden in all types of digital media

3
Motivation

 Steganography is example of Undetectability


 If you hide communications, you can protect your
thoughts from censorship or discovery
 An opponent cannot control your message, if he cannot
find it

4
Steganography and
Cryptography
 Steganography and Cryptography are closely related
 The difference is in their objectives
 Cryptography: although encrypted and unreadable, the
existence of data is not hidden
 Steganography: no knowledge of the existence of the data
 Steganography and Cryptography can be used together
to produce better protection

5
Steganography and
Cryptography
Confidentiality

Steganography: hides Encryption: encrypts


existence of the secret the
message, but do not use message, but do not
encryption hide the message
– Ideally nobody can see both – Anybody can see both parties
parties are secretly are communicating in secret
communicating – Suspicious
– Innocent

6
Steganography and
Watermarking
 Digital watermarking hides data in a file
 The key difference is their objectives
 Steganography: hiding information
 Watermarking: extending the file with
extra information
 Steganographic information must never
be apparent to a viewer unaware of its presence.

7
Basic Principle in
Steganography
Types of Steganography

 Fragile
 Hidden information destroyed as soon as object is modified
 Protocols tend to be easy to implement
 Useful in proving objects have not been manipulated and
changed e.g. evidence in a court of law
 Robust
 It should be infeasible to remove the hidden data without
degrading the perceived quality of the data
 Protocols are more complex
 One single protocol may not withstand all object
manipulations
 Useful in copyright watermarking
Types of Digital
Steganography
 Hiding a Message inside Text
 First-letter algorithm
 Every n-th character
 Using a publicly available cover source
 Altering the amount of whitespace
 Hiding a Message inside Images
 Least-significant bit (LSB) modifications
 Masking and Filtering
 Hiding a Message inside Audio and Video Files
Examples of Text
Steganography
 Using 1st letter of each world
"PRESIDENT'S EMBARGO RULING SHOULD HAVE IMMEDIATE
NOTICE. GRAVE SITUATION AFFECTING INTERNATIONAL LAW.
STATEMENT FORESHADOWS RUIN OF MANY NEUTRALS.
YELLOW JOURNALS UNIFYING NATIONAL EXCITEMENT
IMMENSELY."
 Secret message: PERSHING SAILS FROM NY JUNE I

COE426: Lecture 13 11
Example of Text
Steganography
 Using publicly available cover space
THE MOST COMMON WORK ANIMAL IS THE HORSE.
THEY CAN BE USED TO FERRY EQUIPMENT TO AND
FROM WORKERS OR TO PULL A PLOW. BE CAREFUL,
THOUGH, BECAUSE SOME HAVE SANK UP TO THEIR
KNEES IN MUD OR SAND, SUCH AS AN INCIDENT AT THE
BURLINGTON FACTORY LAST YEAR. BUT HORSES REMAIN
A SIGNIFICANT FIND. ON A FARM, AN ALTERNATE WORK
ANIMAL MIGHT BE A BURRO BUT THEY ARE NOT AS
COMFORTABLE AS A TRANSPORT ANIMAL.

COE426: Lecture 13 12
Example of Text
Steganography

COE426: Lecture 13 13
Hiding a Message inside
Images
 24-bit vs. 8-bit images
 Tools to implement LSB: EzStego and S-Tools
 Algorithms and Transformations
Least-Significant Bit (LSB)
Method
 Most common form of digital steganography.
 In a RGB image, Information is hidden in the
LSB[s] of the RGB values of each pixel.
 In a 24-bit bitmap, each pixel represented by
3 bytes.
 Effectively have 3-4 bits of data to hide
information in for every pixel:
 8 required for ASCII character
 Changing the LSB of the Red value by 1 (in
24-bit color depth) is undetectable by the
human eye

15
Example of LSB

COE426: Lecture 13 16
Simple Watermarking
 Store host image and hidden image in memory
 Pick the number of bits you wish to hide the hidden image in
 Scan through the host image and alter its LSB’s with the hidden
images MSB’s. So when 4 bits are used to hide information…
 Host Pixel: 10110001
 Secret Pixel: 00111111
 New Image Pixel: 10110011
 Reverse the process To extract the hidden image
Image Techniques

+ =

Bit Level
Original 1
4
7
Images
Hiding a Message inside Audio or Videos Files

 Human limitations – 20.000 Hz.


 Large amount of data that can be hidden inside
 Hard to recognize because of because of the continuous
flow of information (moving stream of images and
sound)
Network Steganography

 Modifying network packet’s header or payload


 In TCP/IP networks, unused bits in the IP and TCP header
may be used
 Packet based length steganography
 Manipulation of the MTU (Maximum Transmission Unit)
 VoIP - Lost Audio Packets Steganographic Method (LACK)
 Transmitter intentionally delays packets by an “excessive”
amount of time.
 Payload of these lost packets contains the secret
information

20
Steganalysis

 Detecting and decoding the hidden data within a given


medium.
 Many algorithms perform a statistical analysis to detect
anomalies in the cover object
 E.g. repetitive patterns could indicate use of a
steganography tool or hidden message
 Investigating pixel “neighborhoods” to find
inconsistencies with ways files are compressed.

21
Steganography Robustness

 The quality of the media should not noticeably degrade


upon embedding data
 Data should be undetectable without secret knowledge
typically the key
 If multiple marks are present they should not interfere
with each other
 The marks should survive attacks that don’t degrade the
perceived quality of the work

COE426: Lecture 13 22
Comparison

Unremovabilit
Confidentiality Integrity
y

Encryption Yes No Yes

Digital
No Yes No
Signatures

Steganograph
Yes/No Yes/No Yes
y
Conclusion

 Steganography will become increasingly important as


more copyrighted material becomes available online
 Many techniques are not robust enough to prevent
detection and removal of embedded data
 Methods of embedding and detecting are likely to
continue to improve

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