ILSB: Indicator-Based LSB Steganography

Abstract

The age-old LSB steganography is one of the easiest and most commonly used data-hiding techniques. Although higher payload delivery can be achieved, it has poor acceptance due to the perceivable impact it leaves on the cover media. Our proposed algorithm strengthens the LSB encoding by not only minimizing the perceivable distortion but also making original message reconstruction by an attacker highly impossible, due to vast key-space. The bit replacement process is guided by a selected indicator color channel, and the embedding sequence is controlled by an indicator pattern table value indexed by the secret message bits. For efficient extraction at the receiver end, the indicator and other metadata are hidden inside the same cover in the form of a header. Encryption of data and header by RC4 cipher adds another layer of security. © Springer India 2015.