An efficient and secure technique for image steganography using a hash function

• DOI: 10.7717/peerj-cs.1157
• Publication Date: 2022-11-24T08:15:13Z
• Authors: Zahid Iqbal Nezami; Hamid Ali; Muhammad Asif; Hanan Aljuaid; Isma Hamid; Zulfiqar Ali
• Keywords: Image Encryption; Artificial intelligence; LSB replacement; Least significant bit; Computer Networks and Communications; Ciphertext; Encryption; Information hiding; 02 engineering and technology; MSE; Theoretical computer science; Image processing; Computer security; Invisibility; Image Forgery Detection; Image (mathematics); 0202 electrical engineering, electronic engineering, information engineering; Stegnopraphy; Steganography; Key (lock); Steganography tools; Digital image; Chaos-based Image Encryption Techniques; Digital Image Watermarking Techniques; PSNR; QA75.5-76.95; Computer science; Cryptographic hash function; World Wide Web; Operating system; Image Authentication; Data Hiding; Electronic computers. Computer science; Computer Science; Physical Sciences; Hash function; Steganalysis; Data hiding; Computer vision; Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition; Pixel; Digital Image Forgery Detection and Identification; The Internet

Steganography is a technique in which a person hides information in digital media. The message sent by this technique is so secret that other people cannot even imagine the information’s existence. This article entails developing a mechanism for communicating one-on-one with individuals by concealing information from the rest of the group. Based on their availability, digital images are the most suited components for use as transmitters when compared to other objects available on the internet. The proposed technique encrypts a message within an image. There are several steganographic techniques for hiding hidden information in photographs, some of which are more difficult than others, and each has its strengths and weaknesses. The encryption mechanism employed may have different requirements depending on the application. For example, certain applications may require complete invisibility of the key information, while others may require the concealment of a larger secret message. In this research, we proposed a technique that converts plain text to ciphertext and encodes it in a picture using up to the four least significant bit (LSB) based on a hash function. The LSBs of the image pixel values are used to substitute pieces of text. Human eyes cannot predict the variation between the initial Image and the resulting image since only the LSBs are modified. The proposed technique is compared with state-of-the-art techniques. The results reveal that the proposed technique outperforms the existing techniques concerning security and efficiency with adequate MSE and PSNR.