Secret Data Transmission Using Combination of Cryptography & Steganography
Main Article Content
Abstract
Secure communication occurs when two entities are communicating and wish to prevent a third party from eavesdropping or intercepting their messages. To achieve this, they employ two security mechanisms: cryptography and steganography. In the initial stage, encryption is applied to the secret plaintext using the Vernam cipher (One-Time Pad) transposition technique. Subsequently, the ciphertext is converted into bytes, and each byte is divided into pairs of bits, with decimal values assigned to each pair, forming a master variable. The master variable's value range falls between 0 to 3. Based on the value of the master variable, the cipher text is added to the carrier image in specific bit locations, such as the Least Significant Bit (LSB) 6th and 7th bit, 7th and 8th bit, or 7th and 6th or 8th and 7th bit locations. The Vernam cipher demonstrates excellent performance metrics, including minimal CPU running time, consistent file size after encryption, and a strong avalanche effect when compared with all transposition ciphers. Once the embedding process is completed, the stego image is sent to the receiver. To retrieve the cipher text from the specified locations, a retrieval process is performed. Finally, the decryption process utilizes the Vernam cipher transposition algorithms to recover the secret plaintext.
Article Details
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
IJCERT Policy:
The published work presented in this paper is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) license. This means that the content of this paper can be shared, copied, and redistributed in any medium or format, as long as the original author is properly attributed. Additionally, any derivative works based on this paper must also be licensed under the same terms. This licensing agreement allows for broad dissemination and use of the work while maintaining the author's rights and recognition.
By submitting this paper to IJCERT, the author(s) agree to these licensing terms and confirm that the work is original and does not infringe on any third-party copyright or intellectual property rights.
References
Anderson, R. J., & Petitcolas, F. A. P. (1998). On the Limits of Steganography. IEEE Journal of Selected Areas in Communication, 16(4), 474-481.
Younes, M. A. B., & Jantan, A. (2008). A New Steganography Approach for Image Encryption Exchange by using the LSB insertion. IJCSNS International Journal of Computer Science & Network Security, 8(6), 247-254.
Swain, G., & Lenka, S. K. (2010). Steganography Using a Double Substitution Cipher. International Journal of Wireless Communications and Networking, 2(1), 35-39.
Swain, G., & Lenka, S. K. (2010). A Technique for Secure Communication using Message Dependent Steganography. Special issue of IJCCT, 2(12).
Swain, G., & Lenka, S. K. (2011). Steganography using the Twelve Square Substitution Cipher and Index Variable. IEEE Transactions on Image Processing, 84-88.
Nag, A., Singh, J. P., Khan, S., & Ghosh, S. (2011). A Weighted Location Based LSB Image Steganography Technique. Springer ACC 2011, Part II, CCIS 191, 620-627.
Maiti, C., Baksi, D., Zamider, I., Gorai, P., & Kisku, D. R. (2011). Data Hiding in Images Using Some Efficient Steganography Techniques. Springer SIP 2011, CCIS 260, 195-203.
Li, B., et al. (2011). A survey on image steganography and steganalysis. Journal of Information Hiding and Multimedia Signal Processing, 2(2), 142-172.
Swain, G., & Lenka, S. K. (2012). A Dynamic Approach to Image Steganography Using the Three Least Significant Bits and Extended Hill Cipher. Advanced Materials Research, 403-408, 842-849.
Padmapriya, S., Saravanapriya, S., & Jayachitra, D. (2012). Performance Analysis of Various Encryption Algorithms for Data Communication. International Journal of Computer Science.