A new 8-directional pixel selection technique of LSB based image steganography

Abstract

Pixel selection for data hiding becomes crucial for the solutions in spatial domain of steganography to ensure imperceptibility. This paper presents an efficient approach of pixel selection technique for hiding secret data in cover object of image steganography. After reviewing recent literature, it has been observed that most of the works on pixel selection uses zig-zag technique for their solution. However, it becomes very prone to steganalysis based attacks by the intruders. In this study, 8-directions pixel selection technique is proposed to embed data in the cover image where Least Significant Bit (LSB) method has been used on Red, Green and Blue (RGB) color image especially focused on JPG, JPEG, and PNG. Since this projected procedure avoids the known steganalysis techniques, it will be challenging for the attacker to recognize the presence of secret information from the stego image. To measure the quality, statistical analysis has been performed where the value of the quality measurement matrices has provided better results.