Abstract
The increase of data communication globally requires secure exchange of private information. Steganography is a common form of information hiding from an unauthorized access. Secret messages can be in different ways and file formats such as: images, texts, audios, and videos. Transmitting secret messages is important for trading private information between different countries without hacking. Adaptive Steganography enables hiding data with variable numbers of bits based on the size of the secret message and the cover image. This paper proposes a new data hiding approach for image steganography based on the human visual properties using adaptive Least Significant Bits (LSB). Two different methodologies are applied; firstly, the human eye has different sensitivity to RGB color channels which permits different number of bits for every color channel. Secondly, photos focus normally on their middle zone which permits hiding the secret message using a spiral way starting from the images’ edges towards its center. Both methods are used to enhance the visual appearance of the stego image using the simple LSB replacement approach. This approach enables hiding bigger secret message with less real visual effect/distortion. Experiments are implemented using the common image processing photos dataset. We applied the traditional LSB Steganography with our approach using different performance metrics criteria. Our approach presented better results when compared to traditional LSB approach and when compared with similar recent researches.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Abd-El-Atty B, El-Latif AAA, Amin M (2016) New quantum image steganography scheme with Hadamard transformation. In: International conference on advanced intelligent systems and informatics. Springer, pp 342–352
Akyuz AO, Reinhard E (2006) Color appearance in high-dynamic-range imaging. J Electron Imag 15(3):033001
Attaby AA, Ahmed MFMM, Alsammak AK (2017) Data hiding inside jpeg images with high resistance to steganalysis using a novel technique: Dct-m3. Ain Shams Engineering Journal
Bandyopadhyay SK, Bhattacharyya D, Ganguly D, Mukherjee S, Das P (2008) A tutorial review on steganography. In: International conference on contemporary computing, vol 101. Citeseer, pp 105–114
Cattrell P, et al. (2005) Photographic seeing Cassell illustrated
Chang C-C, Lin M-H, Hu Y-C (2002) A fast and secure image hiding scheme based on LSB substitution. Int J Pattern Recogn Artif Intell 16 (04):399–416
Cheddad A, Condell J, Curran K, Mc Kevitt P (2010) Digital image steganography: survey and analysis of current methods. Signal Process 90 (3):727–752
Elhoseny M, Ramírez-González G, Abu-Elnasr OM, Shawkat SA, Arunkumar N, Farouk A (2018) Secure medical data transmission model for IoT-based healthcare systems. IEEE Access 6:20596–20608
Gallea R, Ardizzone E, Pirrone R (2013) Automatic aesthetic photo composition. In: International conference on image analysis and processing. Springer, pp 21–30
Gonzalez R C, Woods R E, et al. (2017) Digital image processing, 4th edn. Pearson
Haar A (1909) Zur theorie der orthogonalen funktionensysteme. Georg-August-Universitat, Gottingen
Hamming RW (1982) Error detecting and error correcting codes
Heidari S, Farzadnia E (2017) A novel quantum LSB-based steganography method using the gray code for colored quantum images. Quantum Inf Process 16 (10):242
Houser K, Mossman M, Smet K, Whitehead L (2016) Tutorial: color rendering and its applications in lighting. Leukos 12(1–2):7–26
Hu D, Zhou S, Shen Q, Zheng S, Zhao Z, Fan Y (2019) Digital image steganalysis based on visual attention and deep reinforcement learning. IEEE Access
Hussain M, Hussain M (2013) A survey of image steganography techniques. Int J Adv Sci Technol 54:113–124
Itseez (2014) The OpenCV. Reference Manual 2.4.9.0 edition
Ker A D (2004) Improved detection of LSB steganography in grayscale images. In: International workshop on information hiding. Springer, pp 97–115
Kutter M, Petitcolas F A P (1999) Fair benchmark for image watermarking systems. In: Security and watermarking of multimedia contents, vol 3657. International Society for Optics and Photonics, pp 226–24
Liu L, Chen R, Wolf L, Cohen-Or D (2010) Optimizing photo composition. In: Computer graphics forum, vol 29. Wiley Online Library, pp 469–478
Lu J, Zhou G, Yang C, Li Z, Lan M (2019) Steganalysis of content-adaptive steganography based on massive datasets pre-classification and feature selection. IEEE Access 7:21702–21711
Luo W, Huang F, Huang J (2010) Edge adaptive image steganography based on LSB matching revisited. IEEE Trans Inform Forens Secur 5(2):201–214
Maleki N, Jalali M, Jahan MV (2014) Adaptive and non-adaptive data hiding methods for grayscale images based on modulus function. Egyptian Inform J 15(2):115–127
Marwaha P, Marwaha P (2010) Visual cryptographic steganography in images. In: 2010 Second international conference on computing, communication and networking technologies. IEEE, pp 1–6
Mazurczyk W, Caviglione L (2014) Steganography in modern smartphones and mitigation techniques. IEEE Commun Surv Tutor 17(1):334–357
Mohamed MH, Mohamed LM (2016) High capacity image steganography technique based on LSB substitution method. Appl Math Inform Sci 10(1):259
Molaei AM, Ebrahimzadeh A (2019) Optimal steganography with blind detection based on Bayesian optimization algorithm. Pattern Anal Applic 22(1):205–219
Muhammad K, Sajjad M, Mehmood I, Rho S, Baik S W (2016) A novel magic LSB substitution method (M-LSB-SM) using multi-level encryption and achromatic component of an image. Multimed Tools Applic 75(22):14867–14893
Muhammad K, Sajjad M, Mehmood I, Rho S, Baik S W (2018) Image steganography using uncorrelated color space and its application for security of visual contents in online social networks. Futur Gener Comput Syst 86:951–960
Murugan GVK, Subramaniyam RU (2019) Performance analysis of image steganography using wavelet transform for safe and secured transaction. Multimedia Tools and Applications, 1–15
Nilizadeh A, Mazurczyk W, Zou C, Leavens GT (2017) Information hiding in RGB images using an improved matrix pattern approach. In: 2017 IEEE Conference on computer vision and pattern recognition workshops (CVPRW). IEEE, pp 1407–1415
Qin J, Luo Y, Xiang X, Tan Y, Huang H (2019) Coverless image steganography: a survey. IEEE Access
Qu Z, Cheng Z, Wang X (2019) Matrix coding-based quantum image steganography algorithm. IEEE Access 7:35684–35698
Rabie T, Baziyad M (2019) The pixogram: addressing high payload demands for video steganography. IEEE Access 7:21948–21962
Rajendran R, Nair A (2017) Secure communication in online payment. Int J Eng Sci Comput 7(5):11457–11459
Rajkumar P, Kar R, Bhattacharjee AK, Dharmasa H (2012) A comparative analysis of steganographic data hiding within digital images. Int J Comput Applic, 53(1)
Rawat D, Bhandari V (2013) A steganography technique for hiding image in an image using lsb method for 24 bit color image. Int J Comput Applic 64 (20):15–19
Saini S, Brindha K (2014) Improved data embedding into images using histogram shifting. Int J Emergi Res Manag Technol 3:83–86
Salama MA, Mursi MFM, Aly M (2018) Safeguarding images over insecure channel using master key visual cryptopgraphy. Ain Shams Eng J 9 (4):3001–3013
Sara U, Akter M, Uddin MS (2019) Image quality assessment through FSIM, SSIM, MSE and PSNR—a comparative study. J Comput Commun 7(3):8–18
Singh A, Singh SJ (2014) An overview of image steganography techniques. Int J Eng Comput Sci 3(7):7341–7345
Shanthakumari R, Malliga S (2019) Dual layer security of data using LSB inversion image steganography with elliptic curve cryptography encryption algorithm. Multimed Tools Appl, 1–17
Shukla A K, Singh A, Singh B, Kumar A (2018) A secure and high-capacity data-hiding method using compression, encryption and optimized pixel value differencing. IEEE Access 6:51130–51139
Thien C-C, Lin J-C (2003) A simple and high-hiding capacity method for hiding digit-by-digit data in images based on modulus function. Pattern Recogn 36(12):2875–2881
Wang Z, Zhang X (2019) Secure cover selection for steganography. IEEE Access 7:57857–57867
Wang C, Zhang W, Liu J, Yu N (2011) Fast matrix embedding by matrix extending. IEEE Trans Inform Forens Secur 7(1):346–350
Wang Z, Bovik AC, Sheikh HR, Simoncelli EP et al (2004) Image quality assessment: from error visibility to structural similarity. IEEE Trans Image Process 13(4):600–612
Weber A G (1997) The usc-sipi image database version 5. USC-SIPI Report 315, 1–24
Xiang L, Yu J, Yang C, Zeng D, Shen X (2018) A word-embedding-based steganalysis method for linguistic steganography via synonym substitution. IEEE Access 6:64131–64141
Yang H, Sun X, Sun G (2009) A high-capacity image data hiding scheme using adaptive LSB substitution. Radioengineering 18(4):509–516
Yang C, Luo X, Lu J, Liu F (2018) Extracting hidden messages of mlsb steganography based on optimal stego subset. Sci China Inf Sci 61:119103
Zhang Y, Luo X, Guo Y, Qin C, Liu F (2019) Zernike moment-based spatial image steganography resisting scaling attack and statistic detection. IEEE Access 7:24282–24289
Zielinska E, Mazurczyk W, Szczypiorski K (2012) Development trends in steganography. arXiv:http://arxiv.org/abs1202.5289
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
AbdelRaouf, A. A new data hiding approach for image steganography based on visual color sensitivity. Multimed Tools Appl 80, 23393–23417 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11042-020-10224-w
Received:
Revised:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11042-020-10224-w