Improved Video Steganography with Dual Cover Medium, DNA and Complex Frames

Abstract

The most valuable resource on the planet is no longer oil, but data. The transmission of this data securely over the internet is another challenge that comes with its ever-increasing value. In order to transmit sensitive information securely, researchers are combining robust cryptography and steganographic approaches. The objective of this research is to introduce a more secure method of video steganography by using Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) for embedding encrypted data and an intelligent frame selection algorithm to improve video imperceptibility. In the previous approach, DNA was used only for frame selection. If this DNA is compromised, then our frames with the hidden and unencrypted data will be exposed. Moreover the frame selected in this way were random frames, and no consideration was made to the contents of frames. Hiding data in this way introduces visible artifacts in video. In the proposed approach rather than using DNA for frame selection we have created a fake DNA out of our data and then embedded it in a video file on intelligently selected frames called the complex frames. Using chaotic maps and linear congruential generators, a unique pixel set is selected each time only from the identified complex frames, and encrypted data is embedded in these random locations. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed technique shows minimum degradation of the stenographic video hence reducing the very first chances of visual surveillance. Further, the selection of complex frames for embedding and creation of a fake DNA as proposed in this research have higher peak signal-to-noise ratio (PSNR) and reduced mean squared error (MSE) values that indicate improved results. The proposed methodology has been implemented in Matlab.