Higher Payload Capacity in DNA Steganography using Balanced Tree Data Structure

Abstract

In recent years, with the huge expansion of internet and communication technology, the data transmission rate has increased exponentially. The threat of unauthorized penetration to the secret messages during transmission has become a major concern for data integrity. Cryptography and Steganography are two well-known techniques used to secure and hide confidential data from the intruders. Cryptography is used to obscure the secret message whereas Steganography embeds the messages into a cover media and conceals the presence of secret information. In DNA steganography, DNA molecular sequence is used as a cover medium. In the field of steganography, Payload capacity is the measurement of hiding intended messages in cover media. The Capacity of hiding messages in cover media is one of the prime challenges in the field of steganography. The principal study of this research is to provide a new framework using DNA steganography that provides a higher payload capacity. We have used balanced tree data structures for message encoding where the leaf node contains the intended message. This unique process of message encoding and decoding guarantees a payload capacity of ≥ 0.50.