Improved Image Steganography Using LSB Insertion - An Overview

Aparna S

Shinija B

Information Technology
Govt. Engg. College
Trivandrum

Information Technology
Govt. Engg. College
Trivandrum

Abstract
Steganography is a technique used for transmission
of secret message. Here the existence of message is
unknown. The secret message can be embedded within
a digital medium like audio, video, image or text.
Image steganography uses image as the cover object. The most commonly used Image Steganography
technique is LSB Insertion. This paper intends to give
an overview about how to enhance the security of the
techniques by using a suitable cryptographic algorithm,
i.e. , how cryptography can be used to supplement
steganography.

Introduction

In todays world, communication is one of the basic

needs.There are different techniques used for transmission of secret message. Steganography and cryptography are two common methods used for the transmission of digital data.

1.1

Cryptography

Cryptography (or cryptology; from Greek krypts,

hidden, secret; and graphein, writing, or logia,
study, respectively[1]) is the practise and study of
techniques for secure communication in the presence
of third parties (called adversaries).[2]
In cryptography, the secret essage is encrypted with
or without using a key, i.e ,the message is converted
from a readable form to scrambled one.

1.2

Steganography

Steganography is the art or practice of concealing a file, message, image, or video within another file,
message, image, or video. The word steganography

combines the Ancient Greek words steganos, meaning covered, concealed, or protected, and graphein
meaning writing. Here the existence of mesage is
unknown. The object in which the secret message is
hidden is called the cover object and the object obtained as the output of steganography is called stego
object.In image steganography, image is used as the
medium for the transmission of secret message.

An Overview of LSB Based Image

Steganography

LSB Insertion is one among the most common

method used in Image Steganography.To give an
overview on LSB Based Image Steganography, terms
and concepts are explained first.

2.1

Image

To a computer, an image is a collection of numbers

that constitute different light intensities in different
areas of the image [3]. This numeric representation
forms a grid and the individual points are referred to
as pixels. Most images on the Internet consists of a
rectangular map of the images pixels (represented as
bits) where each pixel is located and its colour [4].
These pixels are displayed horizontally row by row.
The number of bits in a colour scheme, called the bit
depth, refers to the number of bits used for each pixel
[5]. The smallest bit depth in current colour schemes is
8, meaning that there are 8 bits used to describe the
colour of each pixel [5]. Monochrome and greyscale
images use 8 bits for each pixel and are able to display 256 different colours or shades of grey. Digital
colour images are typically stored in 24-bit files and
use the RGB colour model, also known as true colour
[5]. All colour variations for the pixels of a 24-bit image are derived from three primary colours: red, green

and blue, and each primary colour is represented by 8

bits [3]. Thus in one given pixel, there can be 256 different quantities of red, green and blue, adding up to
more than 16-million combinations, resulting in more
than 16-million colours [5]. Not surprisingly the larger
amount of colours that can be displayed, the larger the
file size [4].

2.2

Image Domain

Image steganography techniques can be divided

into two groups: those in the Image Domain and those
in the Transform Domain . Image also known as spatial domain techniques embed messages in the intensity of the pixels directly, while for transform also
known as frequency domain, images are first transformed and then the message is embedded in the image .

2.2.1

Enhancing security of steganography

using cryptographic algorithm

Inorder to enhance the security of steganography,

cryptographic algorithms can be used, i.e. , steganography is not a replacement for cryptography, but cryptography can be used to supplement steganography.
First, the secret message is converted to binary
form. Then the message is encrypted using a suitable cryptographic algorithm, before embedding into
the image.In this paper, we use RSA Algorithm to encrypt the message which will be explained in the next
section.A model of the steganographic process with
cryptography is shown in fig 1.

LSB Insertion

It is one among the most common method used for

hiding secret message in cover image.Here, the Least
Significant Bit (LSB) of some or all the byte inside an
image is changed into the bit of the secret message.
Suppose, we are using a 24 bit image. Then 3 bits can
be stored in each pixel. For eg, consider 3 pixel of a
24 bit image as follows:
10111000 10111000 10111011
11110000 10111001 10110101
01101101 00010101 11010101
Now, let the secret message be 00001011. When this
secret message is embedded into the LSB of the image,
resulting gris is as follows:
10111000 10111000 10111010
11110000 10111001 10110100
01101101 00010101 11010101

Even though the secret message is embedded in the

first 8 bits, onlythe underlined 2 bits have changed.So,
on an average only half of the bits may undergo
change.Also, changing the LSB of the image results
only in small change in intensity of the colour which
cannot be perceived by human eyes.

Figure 1: Steganography combined with Cryptography

3.1
3.1.1

RSA Algorithm
Introduction

RSA is one of the first practicable public-key cryptosystems and is widely used for secure data transmission. In such a cryptosystem, the encryption key
is public and differs from the decryption key which is
kept secret. In RSA, this asymmetry is based on the
practical difficulty of factoring the product of two large
prime numbers, the factoring problem. RSA stands for
Ron Rivest, Adi Shamir and Leonard Adleman, who
first publicly described the algorithm in 1977. Clifford
Cocks, an English mathematician, had developed an
equivalent system in 1973, but it was not declassified
until 1997 [6]
Suppose, Alice wish to send a secret message to
Bob.Alice will first encrypt the secret message using
Bobs public key and send it to Bob.Bob can decrypt
the message using his private key.
3.1.2

Operation

RSA Algorithm involves three steps: key generation,

encryption and decryption.

 Key Generation
RSA involves two type of keys: public key and
private key. Public key is made public.The secret message encrypted by a public key can be
decrypted only using the corresponding private
key.The keys are generated as follows:
1. Choose two very large random prime numbers ,say p and q
2. Compute the product n=p.q
3. Compute f(n)=(p-1)(q-1)
4. Choose a random number e such that
1hehf (n) and GCD(e,f(n))=1
(e,n) is the public key.
5. Compute d such that (d*e) mod f(n)=1
(d,n) is the private key.
Encryption
Encryption is done using the public key (e,n).
Suppose the secret message be M.Then
C=Me mod n is the cipher text where M h n
Decryption
Decryption is done using the private key(d,n).
Suppose the cipher text is C.Then
M=Cd mod n is the plain text.

3.2

Figure 2: Embedding secret data into cover image

Encoding

The embedding algorithm is as follows:

1. Choose the cover image and secret message
2. Encrypt the secret message using RSA Algorithm
3. Embed the encrypted secret message in the cover
image using LSB Insertion to obtain stego image
4. Send the stego image to the receiver

3.3

Decoding

The decoding algorithm is as follows:

1. Receive the stego image
2. Retrieve the cipher text from the stego image
3. Apply RSA decryption to decrypt the retrieved
data

Figure 3: Retreiving secret data from cover image

Summary and Conclusions

The security of image steganography system is enhanced and iproved using a cryptographic algorithm
like RSA Algorithm.Here, even if a third person comes
to know about the existence of secret data in an image and retrieve the seret data, he will get only the
encrypted message which is meaningless, thereby enhancing security of image steganography.So steganography is not intended to replace cryptography,but
rather to supplement it.

References
[1] Liddell and Scotts Greek-English Lexicon, Oxford
University Press , 1984.
[2] Rivest,Ronald L(1990), Cryptology In J.Van
Leeuwen Handbook of Theoritial Computer Science, 1. Elsevier.
[3] Johnson N.F.,Jajodia S. Exploring Steganography: Seeing the Unseen Computer Journal,
February 1998
[4] Reference
guide:Graphics
Technical
Options
and
Decisions
http://www.devx.com/projectcool/Article/19997
[5] Owens M. A discussion of covert channels and
steganography SANS Institute, 2002
[6] Smart, Nigel Dr Clifford Cocks CB Bristol University, 2008.