Abstract
In this paper, we analyze the security of a semi-fragile watermarking scheme recently proposed by N. Sivasubramanian et al. for tamper detection and recovery in digital images. 2D lifting wavelet transform is used to calculate and embed the authentication watermark, and 2D discrete cosine transform is used to calculate the recovery watermark. A detailed description of the scheme in question is presented and several vulnerabilities are highlighted and successful cryptanalysis is conducted. we were able to replace the embedded watermark and manipulate the images without being detected by the extraction scheme. Then an improvement of the scheme is proposed to cover the security flaws where chaotic maps are used to exploit its pseudo-random behavior. The improved scheme is tested against a variety of known attacks and showed high performance in tamper detection and recovery of the images.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Amsberry C (1989) Alterations of photos raise host of legal, ethical issues. The Wall Street Journal
Avcibas I, Memon N, Sankur B (2003) Steganalysis using image quality metrics. IEEE Trans Image Process 12(2):221–229
Benrhouma O, Hermassi H, Abd El-Latif AA, Belghith S (2015) Chaotic watermark for blind forgery detection in images. Multimed Tools Appl
Benrhouma O, Hermassi H, Belghith S (2015) Security analysis and improvement of a partial encryption scheme. Multimed Tools Appl 74(11):3617–3634
Benrhouma O, Hermassi H, Belghith S (2015) Tamper detection and self-recovery scheme by dwt watermarking. Nonlinear Dyn 79(3):1817–1833
Benrhouma O, Hermassi H, Belghith S (2016) Security analysis and improvement of an active watermarking system for image tampering detection using a self-recovery scheme. Multimed Tools Appl 1–24
Bibhu V, Kushwaha PK, Kohli R, Singh D (2015) Secret key watermarking in wav audio file in perceptual domain. In: 2015 International conference on futuristic trends on computational analysis and knowledge management (ABLAZE), pp 629–634
Borra S, Thanki R (2020) Crypto-watermarking scheme for tamper detection of medical images. Comput Methods Biomech Biomed Eng Imaging Vis 8 (4):345–355
Botta M, Cavagnino D, Pomponiu V (2015) A successful attack and revision of a chaotic system based fragile watermarking scheme for image tamper detection. {AEU}, - Int J Electron Commun 69(1):242–245
Celik MU, Sharmar G, Tekalp AM (2002) Hierarchical watermarking for secure image authentication with localization. IEEE Trans Image Process 11:585–594
Chang EC, Kankanhalli MS, Guan X, Huang ZY, Wu YH (2003) Robust image authentication using content based compression. ACM Multimed Syst J 2:121–130
Dadkhah S, Abd Manaf A, Hori Y, Hassanien AE, Sadeghi S (2014) An effective svd-based image tampering detection and self-recovery using active watermarking. Signal Process Image Commun 29(10):1197 – 1210
Fridrich J, Goljan M, Baldoza AC (2000) New fragile authentication watermarks for image. Proc IEEE Int Conf Image Process 1:446–449
Fridrich J, Kodovsky J (2012) Rich models for steganalysis of digital images. IEEE Trans Inf Forensic Secur 7(3):868–882
Iqbal N, Hanif M (2021) An efficient grayscale image encryption scheme based on variable length row-column swapping operations. Multimed Tools Appl
Jha DP, Kohli R, Gupta A (2016) Proposed encryption algorithm for data security using matrix properties. In: In 2016 International Conference on Innovation and Challenges in Cyber Security (ICICCS-INBUSH), pp 86–90
Kerckhoffs A. (1883) La cryptographie militaire. J Sci Mil 9:5–38
Lee T-Y, Lin SD (2008) Dual watermark for image tamper detection and recovery. Pattern Recogn 41(11):3497–3506
Leng L, Li M, Kim C, Bi X (2017) Dual-source discrimination power analysis for multi-instance contactless palmprint recognition. Multimed Tools Appl 76(1):333–354
Leng L, Zhang J, Xu J, Khan MK, Alghathbar K (2010) Dynamic weighted discrimination power analysis in dct domain for face and palmprint recognition. In: 2010 International conference on information and communication technology convergence (ICTC), pp 467–471
Li C, Li S, Chen G, Halang WA (2009) Cryptanalysis of an image encryption scheme based on a compound chaotic sequence. Image Vis Comput 27 (8):1035–1039
Li M, Zhang J, Wen W (2014) Cryptanalysis and improvement of a binary watermark-based copyright protection scheme for remote sensing images. Optik - Int J Light Electron Opt 125(24):7231–7234
Liao X, Li K, Yin J (2017) Separable data hiding in encrypted image based on compressive sensing and discrete fourier transform. Multimed Tools Appl 76(20):20739–20753
Liao X, Yin J, Chen M, Qin Z (2020) Adaptive payload distribution in multiple images steganography based on image texture features. IEEE Trans Dependable Secure Comput 1–1
Liao X, Yu Y, Li B, Li Z, Qin Z (2020) A new payload partition strategy in color image steganography. IEEE Trans Circ Syst Video Technol 30 (3):685–696
Lin CY, Chang SF (2001) A robust image authentication method distinguishing jpeg compression from malicious manipulation. IEEE Trans Circ Systems Video Technol 11:153–168
Naskar PK, Bhattacharyya S, Mahatab KC, Dhal KG, Chaudhuri A (2021) An efficient block-level image encryption scheme based on multi-chaotic maps with dna encoding. Nonlinear Dyn 105(4):3673–3698
Paquet A, Ward R, Pitas I (2003) Wavelet packets-based digital watermaking for image verification and authentication. Signal Process 183:2117–2132
Rawat S, Raman B (2011) A chaotic system based fragile watermarking scheme for image tamper detection. AEU - Int J Electron Commun 65(10):840–847
Shojanazeri H, Adnan WAW, Ahmad SMS, Rahimipour S (2017) Authentication of images using zernike moment watermarking. Multimed Tools Appl 76(1):577–606
Sivasubramanian N, Konganathan G (2020) A novel semi fragile watermarking technique for tamper detection and recovery using iwt and dct. Computing
Tang HM, Hang CW (2003) A feature-based robust digital image watermaking shceme. IEEE Trans Signal Process 51:950–958
Teng L, Wang X, Wang X (2013) Cryptanalysis and improvement of a chaotic system based fragile watermarking scheme. {AEU}, - Int J Electron Commun 67(6):540–547
Thanki R, Borra S (2019) Fragile watermarking for copyright authentication and tamper detection of medical images using compressive sensing (cs) based encryption and contourlet domain processing. Multimed Tools Appl 78(10):
Wong N, Memon P (2000) Secret and public key authentication watermarking schemes that resist vector quantization attack. Proc SPIE Secur Watermark Multimed Contents 3971:417–427
Wu X, Zhang L, Chen H, Sun W, Wu Q (2021) Ciphertext-only attacks on the double random phase encryption based on redundancy vulnerability. Optical Review
Xiang T, Wong K-W, Liao X (2007) Selective image encryption using a spatiotemporal chaotic system. Chaos 17(2):023115
Zhang X, Qian Z, Ren Y, Feng G (2011) Watermarking with flexible self-recovery quality based on compressive sensing and compositive reconstruction. IEEE Trans Inf Forensic Secur 6(4):1223–1232
Zhang Z, Wang C, Zhou X (2016) Image watermarking scheme based on dwt-dct and ssv. Int J Secur Appl 10:191–206
Zhu P, Jia F, Zhang J (2013) A copyright protection watermarking algorithm for remote sensing image based on binary image watermark. Optik 124 (20):4177–4181
Acknowledgment
The author would like to thank the deanship of research at the Islamic University of Madinah, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia for supporting this research.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
Publisher’s note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Benrhouma, O. Cryptanalysis and improvement of a semi-fragile watermarking technique for tamper detection and recovery. Multimed Tools Appl 82, 22149–22174 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11042-022-13350-9
Received:
Revised:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11042-022-13350-9