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Secure medical image steganography through optimal pixel selection by EH-MB pipelined optimization technique

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Abstract

In today’s world, transmission of information over the channel is not secure for example patient records and other sensitive information. In order to protect this sensitive information, it is coded within the image, audio or text files which is decodable only with the help of a particular key. To enable security to the covert communication and safeguarding the information for securing medical data to avoid medical related cybercrimes, we have proposed a method for medical image steganography using Elephant Herding-Monarch Butterfly (EH-MB) Optimization algorithm for effective selection of pixels for embedding the secret message (i.e. image/text medical report data) in the cover image. Initially, the cover is converted to frequency domain using multilevel DWT, where, the pixel selection is done optimally in the high frequency components using EH-MB algorithm. EH-MB based pixel selection procedure uses a fitness function that depends on the cost function, which calculates the edge, entropy, and intensity of the pixel for evaluating fitness. Simulation was done in the working platform of MATLAB and comparison of the proposed steganography approach was done with the other existing methods in terms of Peak-Signal-to Noise-Ratio and Mean Square Error to prove the effectiveness of the proposed approach.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Computer Science & Engineering, Appa Institute of Engineering & Technology, Kalaburagi, Karnataka, India

    Ambika

  2. Electronics & Telematics Department, G Narayanamma Institute of Technology & Science, Shaikpet, Hyderbad, 500008, India

    Rajkumar L. Biradar

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  1. Ambika
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  2. Rajkumar L. Biradar
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Correspondence to Ambika.

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Ambika, Biradar, R.L. Secure medical image steganography through optimal pixel selection by EH-MB pipelined optimization technique. Health Technol. 10, 231–247 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12553-018-00289-x

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