A Comparative Analysis of LSB, MSB and PVD Based Image Steganography

Abstract

Steganography is the art and science of hiding information by embedding data into cover media. Numerous techniques are designed to provide the security for the communication of data over the Internet. A good steganographic algorithm is recognized by the performance of the techniques measured with the support of the performance metrics among which are PSNR, MSE, SSIM, robustness and capacity to hide the information in the cover image. In this paper a comparative analysis of Least Significant Bit (LSB), Most Significant Bit (MSB) and Pixel Value Differencing (PVD) image steganography in grayscale and colored images was performed. Three different cover images was used to hide secret message. A comparative performance analysis of LSB, MSB and PVD methods used in image steganography was performed using peak signal to noise ratio (PSNR), Mean square error (MSE) and Structural Similarity index (SSIM) as performance metrics. LSB technique gives higher PSNR and SSIM values than MSB and PVD method with lower MSE than the other two techniques. Future research can be geared towards investigating the embedding capacity, security, and computational complexity of each technique. Keywords: Least Significant Bit (LSB), Most Significant Bit (MSB), Pixel value differencing (PVD), PSNR, SSIM and MSE,