Adaptive Matrix Pattern Steganography on RGB Images
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.13052/jcsm2245-1439.1111Keywords:
Steganography, Steganalysis, Matrix PatternAbstract
Almost all spatial domain image steganography methods rely on modifying the Least Significant Bits (LSB) of each pixel to minimize the visual distortions. However, these methods are susceptible to LSB blind attacks and quantitative steganalyses.
This paper presents an adaptive spatial domain image steganography algorithm for hiding digital media based on matrix patterns, named “Adaptive Matrix Pattern” (AMP). The AMP method increases the security of the steganography scheme of largely hidden messages since it adaptively generates a unique codebook matrix pattern for each ASCII character in each image block. Therefore, each ASCII character gets a different codebook matrix pattern even in different regions of the same image. Moreover, it uses a preprocessing algorithm to identify the most suitable image blocks for hiding purposes. The resulting stego-images are robust against LSB blind attacks since the middle bits of green and blue channels generate matrix patterns and hiding secrets, respectively. Experimental results show that AMP is robust against quantitative steganalyses. Additionally, the quality of stego-images, based on the peak signal-to-noise ratio metric, remains high in both stego-RGB-image and in the stego-blue-channel. Finally, the AMP method provides a high hiding capacity, up to 1.33 bits per pixel.
Downloads
References
Wassim Alexan, Ahmed Hamza, and Hana Medhat. An aes double–layer based message security scheme. In 2019 International Conference on Innovative Trends in Computer Engineering (ITCE), pages 86–91, Aswan, Egypt, 2019. IEEE.
Patrick Bas, Tomáš Filler, and Tomáš Pevnỳ. ” break our steganographic system”: the ins and outs of organizing boss. In International workshop on information hiding, pages 59–70, Berlin, Heidelberg, 2011. Springer.
Saman Shojae Chaeikar and Ali Ahmadi. Ensemble sw image steganalysis: A low dimension method for lsbr detection. Signal Processing: Image Communication, 70:233–245, 2019.
Rajarathnam Chandramouli and Nasir Memon. Analysis of lsb based image steganography techniques. In Image Processing, 2001. Proceedings. 2001 International Conference on, volume 3, pages 1019–1022, Thessaloniki, Greece, 2001. IEEE.
Abbas Cheddad, Joan Condell, Kevin Curran, and Paul Mc Kevitt. Digital image steganography: Survey and analysis of current methods. Signal processing, 90(3):727–752, 2010.
Sheshang D Degadwala, Mohini Kulkarni, Dhairya Vyas, and Arpana Mahajan. Novel image watermarking approach against noise and rst attacks. Procedia Computer Science, 167:213–223, 2020.
Tomáš Denemark, Patrick Bas, and Jessica Fridrich. Natural steganography in jpeg compressed images. Electronic Imaging, 2018(7):316–1, 2018.
Tomáš Denemark and Jessica Fridrich. Improving steganographic security by synchronizing the selection channel. In Proceedings of the 3rd ACM Workshop on Information Hiding and Multimedia Security, pages 5–14, 2015.
Tomáš Denemark and Jessica Fridrich. Steganography with multiple jpeg images of the same scene. IEEE Transactions on Information Forensics and Security, 12(10):2308–2319, 2017.
Sorina Dumitrescu, Xiaolin Wu, and Nasir Memon. On steganalysis of random lsb embedding in continuous-tone images. In Proceedings. International Conference on Image Processing, volume 3, pages 641–644, Rochester, NY, USA, 2002. IEEE.
Salma Elsherif, Ghadir Mostafa, Sara Farrag, and Wassim Alexan. Secure message embedding in 3d images. In 2019 International Conference on Innovative Trends in Computer Engineering (ITCE), pages 117–123. IEEE, 2019.
Hany Farid. Detecting steganographic messages in digital images. Technical Report 9-1-2001, Department of Computer Science, University of Dartmouth, 2001. Available at https://digitalcommons.dartmouth.edu/cs_tr.
Lionel Fillatre. Adaptive steganalysis of least significant bit replacement in grayscale natural images. IEEE Transactions on Signal Processing, 60(2):556–569, 2011.
Tomáš Filler, Jan Judas, and Jessica Fridrich. Minimizing additive distortion in steganography using syndrome-trellis codes. IEEE Transactions on Information Forensics and Security, 6(3):920–935, 2011.
Jessica Fridrich. Research code. url http://dde.binghamton.edu/download/, 2021.
Jessica Fridrich, Miroslav Goljan, and Rui Du. Reliable detection of lsb steganography in color and grayscale images. In Proceedings of the 2001 workshop on Multimedia and security: new challenges, pages 27–30, 2001.
Jessica Fridrich, Miroslav Goljan, Dorin Hogea, and David Soukal. Quantitative steganalysis of digital images: estimating the secret message length. Multimedia systems, 9(3):288–302, 2003.
Quentin Giboulot and Jessica Fridrich. Payload scaling for adaptive steganography: An empirical study. IEEE Signal Processing Letters, 26(9):1339–1343, 2019.
Miroslav Goljan, Jessica Fridrich, and Taras Holotyak. New blind steganalysis and its implications. In Security, Steganography, and Watermarking of Multimedia Contents VIII, volume 6072, page 607201. International Society for Optics and Photonics, 2006.
Linjie Guo, Jiangqun Ni, and Yun Qing Shi. An efficient jpeg steganographic scheme using uniform embedding. In 2012 IEEE International Workshop on Information Forensics and Security (WIFS), pages 169–174. IEEE, 2012.
Hirohisa Hioki. A data embedding method using bpcs principle with new complexity measures. In proceedings of Pacific Rim workshop on digital steganography, pages 30–47, kitakyushu, Japan, 2002.
Oliver Holub and Sérgio T Ferreira. Quantitative histogram analysis of images. Computer physics communications, 175(9):620–623, 2006.
V. Holub and J. Fridrich. Designing steganographic distortion using directional filters. In 2012 IEEE International Workshop on Information Forensics and Security (WIFS), pages 234–239, Dec 2012.
Vojtěch Holub, Jessica Fridrich, and Tomáš Denemark. Universal distortion function for steganography in an arbitrary domain. EURASIP Journal on Information Security, 2014(1):1, 2014.
Ju-Yuan Hsiao, Ke-Fan Chan, and J Morris Chang. Block-based reversible data embedding. Signal Processing, 89(4):556–569, 2009.
Mehdi Hussain, Ainuddin Wahid Abdul Wahab, Yamani Idna Bin Idris, Anthony TS Ho, and Ki-Hyun Jung. Image steganography in spatial domain: A survey. Signal Processing: Image Communication, 65:46–66, 2018.
Neil F Johnson and Sushil Jajodia. Exploring steganography: Seeing the unseen. Computer, 31(2):26–34, 1998.
Neil F Johnson and Sushil Jajodia. Steganalysis of images created using current steganography software. In International Workshop on Information Hiding, pages 273–289. Springer, 1998.
Jeong-Chun Joo, Hae-Yeoun Lee, and Heung-Kyu Lee. Improved steganographic method preserving pixel-value differencing histogram with modulus function. EURASIP Journal on Advances in Signal Processing, 2010(1):249826, 2010.
Eiji Kawaguchi and Richard O. Eason. Principles and applications of BPCS steganography. In Andrew G. Tescher, Bhaskaran Vasudev, V. Michael Bove Jr., and Barbara Derryberry, editors, Multimedia Systems and Applications, volume 3528, pages 464 – 473, Boston, MA, 1999. International Society for Optics and Photonics, SPIE.
Andrew D Ker. A general framework for structural steganalysis of lsb replacement. In International Workshop on Information Hiding, pages 296–311, Berlin, Heidelberg, 2005. Springer.
Andrew D Ker. A weighted stego image detector for sequential lsb replacement. In Third International Symposium on Information Assurance and Security, pages 453–456. IEEE, 2007.
Andrew D Ker and Rainer Böhme. Revisiting weighted stego-image steganalysis. In Security, Forensics, Steganography, and Watermarking of Multimedia Contents X, volume 6819, page 681905, San Francisco, CA, 2008. International Society for Optics and Photonics.
Andrew David Ker. Quantitative evaluation of pairs and rs steganalysis. In Security, Steganography, and Watermarking of Multimedia Contents VI, volume 5306, pages 83–97. International Society for Optics and Photonics, 2004.
Jan Kodovskỳ and Jessica Fridrich. Steganalysis in resized images. In 2013 IEEE International Conference on Acoustics, Speech and Signal Processing, pages 2857–2861, Vancouver, BC, 2013. IEEE.
Bin Li, Junhui He, Jiwu Huang, and Yun Qing Shi. A survey on image steganography and steganalysis. Journal of Information Hiding and Multimedia Signal Processing, 2(2):142–172, 2011.
Bin Li, Ming Wang, Jiwu Huang, and Xiaolong Li. A new cost function for spatial image steganography. In 2014 IEEE International Conference on Image Processing (ICIP), pages 4206–4210. IEEE, 2014.
Xiaolong Li, Jian Li, Bin Li, and Bin Yang. High-fidelity reversible data hiding scheme based on pixel-value-ordering and prediction-error expansion. Signal processing, 93(1):198–205, 2013.
Vinicius Licks and Ramiro Jordan. Geometric attacks on image watermarking systems. IEEE multimedia, 12(3):68–78, 2005.
Yifeng Lu, Xiaolong Li, and Bin Yang. A secure steganography: noisy region embedding. In 2009 Fifth International Conference on Intelligent Information Hiding and Multimedia Signal Processing, pages 1046–1051. IEEE, 2009.
Weiqi Luo, Fangjun Huang, and Jiwu Huang. Edge adaptive image steganography based on lsb matching revisited. IEEE transactions on information forensics and security, 5(2):201–214, 2010.
Xiang-Yang Luo, Dao-Shun Wang, Ping Wang, and Fen-Lin Liu. A review on blind detection for image steganography. Signal Processing, 88(9):2138–2157, 2008.
Siwei Lyu and Hany Farid. Detecting hidden messages using higher-order statistics and support vector machines. In International Workshop on information hiding, pages 340–354. Springer, 2002.
M Mahasree, N Puviarasan, and P Aruna. An improved reversible data hiding using pixel value ordering and context pixel-based block selection. In Proceedings of First International Conference on Computing, Communications, and Cyber-Security (IC4S 2019), pages 873–887. Springer, 2020.
P Mahimah and R Kurinji. Zigzag pixel indicator based secret data hiding method. In 2013 IEEE International Conference on Computational Intelligence and Computing Research, pages 1–5. IEEE, 2013.
Bishwas Mandal, Anita Pradhan, and Gandharba Swain. Adaptive lsb substitution steganography technique based on pvd. In 2019 3rd International Conference on Trends in Electronics and Informatics (ICOEI), pages 459–464. IEEE, 2019.
Jarno Mielikainen. Lsb matching revisited. IEEE signal processing letters, 13(5):285–287, 2006.
Yomna Moussa and Wassim Alexan. Message security through aes and lsb embedding in edge detected pixels of 3d images. In 2020 2nd Novel Intelligent and Leading Emerging Sciences Conference (NILES), pages 224–229. IEEE, 2020.
Moad Mowafi, Omar Oudat, Eyad Taqieddin, and Omar Banimelhem. Image steganography using ycbcr color space and matrix pattern. In 2019 2nd International Conference on Signal Processing and Information Security (ICSPIS), pages 1–4. IEEE, 2019.
Khan Muhammad, Muhammad Sajjad, Irfan Mehmood, Seungmin Rho, and Sung Wook Baik. A novel magic lsb substitution method (m-lsb-sm) using multi-level encryption and achromatic component of an image. Multimedia Tools and Applications, 75(22):14867–14893, 2016.
Amir Farhad Nilizadeh and Ahmad Reza Naghsh Nilchi. Steganography on rgb images based on a ”matrix pattern” using random blocks. International Journal of Modern Education and Computer Science, 5(4):8, 2013.
Amir Farhad Nilizadeh and Ahmad Reza Naghsh Nilchi. Block texture pattern detection based on smoothness and complexity of neighborhood pixels. International Journal of Image, Graphics and Signal Processing, 6(5):1, 2014.
Amirfarhad Nilizadeh. Adaptive-multimedia-steganography-based-on-matrix-pattern. https://github.com/Amirfarhad-Nilizadeh/Adaptive-Matrix-Pattern-Steganography/, 2021.
Amirfarhad Nilizadeh, Wojciech Mazurczyk, Cliff Zou, and Gary T Leavens. Information hiding in rgb images using an improved matrix pattern approach. In 2017 IEEE Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition Workshops (CVPRW), pages 1407–1415, Honolulu, HI, 2017. IEEE.
Amirfarhad Nilizadeh and Ahmad Reza Naghsh Nilchi. A novel steganography method based on matrix pattern and lsb algorithms in rgb images. In Swarm Intelligence and Evolutionary Computation (CSIEC), 2016 1st Conference on, pages 154–159, Bam, 2016. IEEE.
CD Nisha and Thomas Monoth. Analysis of spatial domain image steganography based on pixel-value differencing method. In Soft Computing for Problem Solving, pages 385–397. Springer, 2020.
Mohammad Tanvir Parvez and Adnan Abdul-Aziz Gutub. Rgb intensity based variable-bits image steganography. In 2008 IEEE Asia-Pacific Services Computing Conference, pages 1322–1327. IEEE, 2008.
Fei Peng, Xiaolong Li, and Bin Yang. Improved pvo-based reversible data hiding. Digital Signal Processing, 25:255–265, 2014.
Tomáš Pevný, Tomáš Filler, and Patrick Bas. Boss breack our steganographic system. http://agents.fel.cvut.cz/boss/index.php?mode=VIEW&tmpl=materials, 2021.
Tomáš Pevny, Patrick Bas, and Jessica Fridrich. Steganalysis by subtractive pixel adjacency matrix. IEEE Transactions on information Forensics and Security, 5(2):215–224, 2010.
Tomáš Pevnỳ, Tomáš Filler, and Patrick Bas. Using high-dimensional image models to perform highly undetectable steganography. In International Workshop on Information Hiding, pages 161–177. Springer, 2010.
Tomáš Pevny, Jessica Fridrich, and Andrew D Ker. From blind to quantitative steganalysis. In Media forensics and security, volume 7254, page 72540C. International Society for Optics and Photonics, 2009.
Tomáš Pevny, Jessica Fridrich, and Andrew D Ker. From blind to quantitative steganalysis. IEEE Transactions on Information Forensics and Security, 7(2):445–454, 2011.
Alin C Popescu and Hany Farid. Statistical tools for digital forensics. In international workshop on information hiding, pages 128–147. Springer, 2004.
Vidyasagar M Potdar, Song Han, and Elizabeth Chang. A survey of digital image watermarking techniques. In INDIN’05. 2005 3rd IEEE International Conference on Industrial Informatics, 2005., pages 709–716. IEEE, 2005.
Niels Provos. Defending against statistical steganalysis. In Usenix security symposium, volume 10, pages 323–336, 2001.
Niels Provos and Peter Honeyman. Hide and seek: An introduction to steganography. IEEE security & privacy, 99(3):32–44, 2003.
Vahid Sedighi, Rémi Cogranne, and Jessica Fridrich. Content-adaptive steganography by minimizing statistical detectability. IEEE Transactions on Information Forensics and Security, 11(2):221–234, 2015.
BS Shashikiran, K Shaila, and KR Venugopal. Minimal block knight’s tour and edge with lsb pixel replacement based encrypted image steganography. SN Computer Science, 2(3):1–9, 2021.
Kaushal Solanki, Anindya Sarkar, and BS Manjunath. Yass: Yet another steganographic scheme that resists blind steganalysis. In International Workshop on Information Hiding, pages 16–31, Berlin, Heidelberg, 2007. Springer.
Mansi S Subhedar and Vijay H Mankar. Current status and key issues in image steganography: A survey. Computer science review, 13:95–113, 2014.
Gandharba Swain. Adaptive and non-adaptive pvd steganography using overlapped pixel blocks. Arabian Journal for Science and Engineering, 43(12):7549–7562, 2018.
Gandharba Swain and Saroj Kumar Lenka. A better rgb channel based image steganography technique. In International Conference on Computing and Communication Systems, pages 470–478. Springer, 2011.
Hironobu Tozuka, Maki Yoshida, and Toru Fujiwara. Salt-and-pepper image watermarking system for ihc evaluation criteria. In Proceedings of the 1st international workshop on Information hiding and its criteria for evaluation, pages 31–36, Kyoto, JAPAN, 2014. ACM.
ST Veena and S Arivazhagan. Quantitative steganalysis of spatial lsb based stego images using reduced instances and features. Pattern Recognition Letters, 105:39–49, 2018.
Chung-Ming Wang, Nan-I Wu, Chwei-Shyong Tsai, and Min-Shiang Hwang. A high quality steganographic method with pixel-value differencing and modulus function. Journal of Systems and Software, 81(1):150–158, 2008.
Shaowei Weng, Yijun Liu, Jeng-Shyang Pan, and Nian Cai. Reversible data hiding based on flexible block-partition and adaptive block-modification strategy. Journal of Visual Communication and Image Representation, 41:185–199, 2016.
Shaowei Weng, YunQing Shi, Wien Hong, and Ye Yao. Dynamic improved pixel value ordering reversible data hiding. Information Sciences, 489:136–154, 2019.
Andreas Westfeld and Andreas Pfitzmann. Attacks on steganographic systems. In International workshop on information hiding, pages 61–76. Springer, 1999.
Da-Chun Wu and Wen-Hsiang Tsai. A steganographic method for images by pixel-value differencing. Pattern Recognition Letters, 24(9):1613–1626, 2003.
H-C Wu, N-I Wu, C-S Tsai, and M-S Hwang. Image steganographic scheme based on pixel-value differencing and lsb replacement methods. IEE Proceedings-Vision, Image and Signal Processing, 152(5):611–615, 2005.
Xinpeng Zhang and Shuozhong Wang. Efficient steganographic embedding by exploiting modification direction. IEEE Communications Letters, 10(11):781–783, 2006.
Linna Zhou and Yang Cao. Combined algorithm of steganography with matrix pattern and pixel value difference. In 2019 IEEE 2nd International Conference on Computer and Communication Engineering Technology (CCET), pages 6–10, Beijing, China, 2019. IEEE, IEEE.
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2021 Journal of Cyber Security and Mobility
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
