A secured steganography algorithm for hiding an image in an image

Abstract

Recent developments in computer security have shown that steganography rather than cryptography is the better method of securing data. A commonly used technique in steganography is the least significant bits (LSB) method, which is, however, vulnerable to attacks due to its simplicity. Nonetheless, it would be difficult or impractical to discern encrypted data if a stego key is added. In this chapter, we show how a carrier image is used to hide another image and present a modified approach for embedding a stego key within it. A 24-bit color carrier image is used to hide the secret image and the same is further used to hide the stego key. We compare the peak signal-to-noise ratio (PSNR) and mean squared error (MSE) and conduct a histogram analysis to determine to what level the stego image is blurred in the carrier image.