Secure Key Based Image Realization Steganography

Shabnam Samima
Department of Computer Applications
National Institute of Technology
Durgapur, India
shabnam.samima@gmail.com
Ratnakirti Roy
Department of Computer Applications
National Institute of Technology
Durgapur, India
rroy.nitdgp@gmail.com
Suvamoy Changder
Department of Computer Applications
National Institute of Technology
Durgapur, India
suvamoy.nitdgp@gmail.com


AbstractSteganography is the science of hiding crucial
information in someinnocuous objects such that the mere existence
of the hidden information is unidentifiable in human sight. Various
unique methodologies have been implemented over time to hide
information using steganography. In most of the methodologies the
exact secret information is hidden inside the cover image in a way
that it is completely unrecognizable. Thus, if the embedding
mechanism is compromised, there is no way that the hidden
message can remain unexposed. Security of the secret information
can be enhanced if the actual secret message is not embedded in the
cover image at all. In this paper a novel approach to image
steganography through image realization has been proposed in
which, rather than sending the actual secret information some
mapping information of the secret information is embedded in the
stego image. The actual realization of the secret information is
secured using a multi layered secure pass key.
KeywordsImage Steganography; Pseudo random number
generator; Pairing Function; Matrix Encoding; Extraction Key
I. INTRODUCTION
Today the most convenient medium of communication is the
internet; it provides a common data sharing platform for
millions of people all over the world. Despite of the various
advantages provided by the web services, such as, easy data
transmission and sharing, the confidentiality of crucial data is
also under threat of being compromised. Data over internet
may be stolen, intercepted, illegally modified, tampered or
even destroyed by an adversary resulting in data loss, data
damage, data leakage, intellectual property rights
infringement. Hence it is extremely important to maintain the
privacy and confidentiality of the data while it is being
transmitted over the internet. To ensure secure transmission
the data over the internet it must be wrapped in an envelope
such that the content is only revealed to the intended recipient.
Data hiding techniques such as steganography [1] aim at
fulfilling such requirements in particular.
Steganography camouflages a message to hide its
existence and make it seem "invisible" thus concealing the fact
that a message is being sent altogether [2].
Carriers such as images, audio files, text files, videos can
be used as cover objects for information hiding. When the
message is hidden in the carrier a stego-carrier is formed and
the hidden message is called the payload. Images are a popular
choice as a cover due to their availability and pervasiveness in
daily applications. The primary goals of any steganography
method are: (i) high fidelity of the stego image (ii) payload
security.
In nearly all the image steganography techniques proposed
till date, the exact secret information is hidden in the cover
object. This makes the security of the payload entirely
dependent on the efficiency of the hiding technique. Once the
hiding technique is compromised almost nothing can be done
to prevent the payload from getting revealed to the adversary.
The security of the payload can be enhanced if the actual secret
message is not embedded in the cover at all. Instead of
embedding the secret message, a mapping information is
embedded which is apparently useless in the absence of a
decoding key. The key can be made strong enough to have a
very large key space making key decoding a tough job and thus
adds to the security of the system. Such a system of image
steganography can be termed as Image Realization
Steganography.
This paper proposes a steganography technique based on
Image Realization from a stego-image containing a cover to
secret mapping hidden using an efficient embedding technique
and secured using a strong decoding key. The proposed method
thus focuses on covert communication without transmitting the
actual secret message and also emphasizes on how a strong key
based security can be imposed on the payload, making it secure
against accidental exposure to an adversary.
II. RELATED RESEARCHES
Very few works can be found in literature which
emphasize on the security of the payload in case of accidental
exposure to an adversary and far less is the work done in
Image Realization Steganography where a stego image does
not contain the actual hidden data but contains only a mapping
of the cover image and the secret message. The mapping itself
is of no use to an adversary as the actual decoding (secret
message realization) is based on a secret key which is agreed
upon by the sender and the receiver beforehand. However,
some of the works which might be considered relevant to the
current context is presented next.

The simplest method of hiding the data is pure LSB based
steganography. In this mechanism the bits of image are
embedded at the least significant bit position of pixel values.
BMP as well as GIF based steganography applies LSB
techniques [3], while their resistance to statistical attacks and
compression are reported to be weak [4]. The algorithm is
simple to implement. It has a drawback that if the attacker
removes the least significant bits of image then our message
will be lost.

Wang et al. [5] proposed a data hiding scheme. Instead of
embedding the data in the least-significant-bit (LSB) of the
host image, they proposed embedding the data in the
moderately-significant-bit (MSB) (the fifth bit) of the host
image. Here, the MSB is called the first bit while the LSB is
called the eighth bit. With the use of the optimal substitution
process and local pixel adjustment process, the image quality
of the resulting stego-image is much better than that of the
simple replacement method. Similarly, C.C Changet al., [6]
have proposed an image steganography technique which offer
highembedding capacity and bring less distortion to the stego
image. The embedding process embedbits of secret bit stream
on the stego image pixels. Instead of replacing the LSB of
every pixel,this method replaces the pixel intensity with
similar value.

In the method proposed by Po-Yueh Chen et al., [7]
proposed an image steganography scheme which fixes the
limitation ofsteganography technique proposed in [6]. The
limitation of [6] is falling of boundary problemwhich means
the pixel which is located for embedding will become unused;
since it exceeds themaximum intensity level which is greater
than 255 (maximum gray scale intensity). Fewer bits areadded
even on such pixels which improve the embedding capacity
without compromising PSNRin this technique.

Secure Skin Tone based Steganography [8] embeds data
within skin region of image using a DWT based embedding
scheme. The authors claim the method to be secure with
respect to detection through steganalyzers but there is no
scope for the preserving the confidentiality of the payload
once the embedding scheme is compromised.

JSteg [9] was the first publicly available steganographic
system for JPEG images. Its embedding algorithm
sequentially replaces the least-significant bit of DCT
coefficients with the messages data. The algorithm does not
require a shared secret; as a result, anyone who knows the
steganographic system can retrieve the message hidden by
JSteg.

The F5 algorithm [10] embeds message bits into randomly-
chosen DCT coefficientsand employs matrix embedding that
minimizes the necessary number of changes toembed a
message of certain length.
III. PROPOSED METHOD
The proposed mechanism can be divided into two phases
namely, Phase I and Phase II. The first phase deals with cover
to secret message mapping, key generation and the actual
embedding while the latter phase implements the extraction
procedure.
A. Phase I
1) Map Generation

Mechanisms such as chaotic mapping, shuffling of the secret
information can be a very useful technique to ensure the
security of the secret information.
Another possibility of mapping is possible by using simple
mathematical operations such as addition, subtraction, division,
etc to generate the mapping matrix. Here in this proposed
algorithm the operation used is subtraction. The mapping
procedure is as follows:
Let C
i
denote any plane of an RGB image. Then C
i
must be
any one of C
r
(red plane), C
g
(green plane) and C
b
(blue plane).
Let S be the secret information. For mapping image plane C
i
, is
converted into equal blocks of multiple of the secret
information size. Let C
min
denote the block with minimum
difference with S. The mapping operation is mathematically
expressed as follows:
C
mn
S = H (1)
where C
min
L C
i
and C
i
e {C
r
, C
g
, C
b
}, M is the mapping
matrix and @ is the mapping operator used. The overall map
generation technique is shown below.










Figure 1: Map Generation Technique
2) Key Generation

The proposed algorithm also emphasizes on the generation
of the extraction key. The key is generated in 4 stages using
the Cantor pairing function mechanism [11] which is also
reversible. The large key space used by the generated key
ensures that the probability of discovering the right key is
negligible which enhances its security factor.

Let aandbare two integers. The pairing of these two values
can be evaluated as follows:

b = P(o, b) (2)
P(o, b) = (o + b -2) -
o + b - 1
2
+ o (S)

where h is the generated paired value and P (a,b) is the pairing
function.

The actual key generation mechanism works as follows:

Let (x, y) and (i, ]) denotes the location of the mapping
matrix and the size of the secret information. Let P
prng
be the
key for the pseudo random number generation.

P(x, y) = k
1

P(i, ]) = k
2

P(k
1
, k
2
) = k
3

P(k
3
, P
png
) = K (4)
where K is the final extraction key.

During the extraction of the secret information the final
extraction key K can be reversed using the following
technique:

c = _2b -
1
2
_ (S)
Now we define c as,
c =
1
2
c(c + 1) (6)
Using (2), (5) and (6) the original values of a and b are
retrieved as follows:
o = b -c (7)
b = c - o +2 (8)

3) Actual Embedding

The embedding mechanism works on the spatial domain.
In the embedding algorithm the actual secret image is not
being embedded instead, an optimized mapping matrix is used
for embedding in other two planes of the cover image. The
actual embedding is done using a high efficiency embedding
scheme such as Matrix Encoding [12].

The key is being generated using pairing function. After
the completion of the embedding procedure the resultant stego
image is sent to the receiver along with the secret key details
for extraction purpose. The details of the embedding algorithm
are as follows:

Input: Any suitable cover image, an image or a text file to be
hidden into the cover image.
Output: A stego image with the secret information hidden
inside it.
Algorithm:

Step 1: Extract one plane of the cover image (here considering
the red plane), say C
r
.
Step 2: Convert the extracted plane C
r
into multiple of the
secret image.
Step 3: Break the C
r
into blocks. Let the number of blocks be
N.
Step 4: For i=1 to N
H: = C

S
where C

is the current block, S is the secret image and

M is the mapping matrix
End
Step 5: Select the block of mapping matrix C
min
having
minimum no. of embedding bits.
Step 6: Embed the mapping matrix in other two planes (C
g
,
C
b
).
Step 7: Generate the extraction key using pairing function.
Step 8: Save the stego image.
The overall working procedure of the proposed method is
pictorially shown in Figure 2.












B. Phase II
1) Extraction Algorithm

The extraction algorithm works exactly in the reverse way
as the embedding algorithm. With the key provided by the
sender of the file, a reverse mechanism is applied over the key
to generate the keys needed to extract our secret information
i.e., the size of the secret information and the location of the
matrix from where we can retrieve our data by subtracting it
from the original matrix value.

Input: The extraction key and the stego image sent by the
sender.
Output: The secret information hidden inside the stego image.
Algorithm:

Step 1: Generate the keys from the extraction key supplied
using a reverse function.
Step 2: Using the keys extract the mapping matrix, M.
Step 3: Extract the plane in which embedding was not done
(here considering the red plane C
r
).
Step4: Using the mapping matrix extract the secret
information by following method:

Sccrct = 0riginol motrix + Hopping motrix
Step 5: Save and modify the extracted information according
to the appropriate type of the intended data and
display.
The extraction procedure is pictorially shown in Figure 3.





Figure 2: Embedding Procedure













C. Strength of the Key
The decoding key is generated in 4 layers. At first the
length and width of the secret image is combined then the
location of the matrix from where we can retrieve our data is
being combined. In the next step we combine the resultant
values of these two to generate a new key. Lastly we combine
this new key with the key of the pseudo random number
generator to generate the final extraction key. To ascertain the
security of the key, we find the probability of a random guess
of the key generating the actual key. The probability may be
calculated as follows:
Let k be the minimum length of the key. Each i
th
(1ik)
position in the key can have any values in the range 0-9 thus,
the number of possibilities of generating keys of length k from
10 digits is,
10
k
= m (say)
Therefore, probability of a random guess to decode the key
being correct is given by
P(correct) =
1
m
(9)
Hence it is evident that higher length of the key decreases
the probability of the key being decoded by an adversary.
IV. EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS
The algorithm has been implemented in MATLAB and
tested on a 32-bit 3.00 GHz dual core processor computer. The
standard test image of Nadal has been chosen as the cover
object. The algorithm has been tested for the level of visual
distortion and the time required for embedding the informative
bits. Another dimension of testing has been given by measuring
the change in the image histogram produced in the image due
to embedding.
A. Measuring the Embedding Distortion
The cover image distortion produced due to embedding can
be measured in terms of Peak Signal to Noise Ratio (PSNR)
and Mean Squared Error (MSE). These two error measuring
metrics can be defined as follows:
HSE =
1
HXN
(x
]
-y
]
)
2

N
]=1
M
=1
(1u)
PSNR = 1u log
10
_
2SS
2
HSE
_JB (11)
Where x
ij
and y
ij
in the MSE equation are the pixel values in
the cover and stego image respectively and M, N are the
dimensions of the cover image along the horizontal and
vertical axes. In the equation for calculating PSNR the
constant value of 255 denotes the maximum value that a pixel
color may hold having 8 bits color depth. In RGB images,
each color component i.e., Red, Green, Blue has a color depth
of 8 bits.
The MSE value for RGB images is calculated per color
plane of the image and then the average of the MSE of the
individual plane gives the Mean Squared Error between the
cover and the stego image. Larger PSNR value signifies better
Fidelity which means lower distortion of the stego image. For
high Fidelity stego image the evaluated PSNR value is
generally expected to be greater than 40dB.

Table 1: Distortion Measure and Embedding Time for Various
Sizes of the Secret Information

Size of
Secret
Information
MSE

PSNR
(dB)
Embedding
Time (sec.)
64x64 0.0347 62.7329 0.194162
80x80 0.0540 60.8100 0.37989
100x100 0.0843 58.8716 0.53113
120x120 0.1212 57.2970 0.71439
128x128 0.1380 56.7307 0.79861
130x130 0.1421 56.6053 0.81053
140x140 0.1660 55.9292 0.84486
150x150 0.1905 55.3328 1.04884
Average 0.11635 58.0386 0.665301

From the experimental results in Table 1 we can conclude
that even though the size of the secret information has been
increased, the proposed algorithm offers a high PSNR value.
The average PSNR value is 58.0386dB which is greater than
40 dB, the minimum threshold for human eye. Thus it is
evident that the stego image has a very low visible distortion
(Figure 4).







B. Histogram Analysis
The imperceptibility of steganography is one of the most
important measures that evaluate the performance of the

Figure 3: Extraction Procedure

Figure 4: Cover and Stego Image
Cover image Stego image
steganography. The histograms of the three color planes of the
cover image are shown in Figure 5.















The above figure shows the histogram analysis of the
stego and cover images respectively. Careful observation
reveals that the two sets of histograms vary negligibly in the
green and the blue planes. There is no variation in the red plane
because during it remains unaltered. The low variation in the
green and blue plane is due to the effect of Matrix Encoding
method applied for bit overwriting.
C. Chi-Square(2) Analysis for Statistical Imperceptibility
To ascertain the statistical Imperceptibility of the proposed
method, it was subjected to _
2
attack [13]. The attack is based
on determining the degree of randomness of the image pixels
after embedding has taken place. It utilizes the concept of
PoVs (pair of values) [14] of pixel indices. Let the colors are
addressed by their indices i, and we refer to their respective
frequencies before and after embedding as n
i
and n
i*

respectively. Given uniformly distributed message bits, if n
2i
>
n
2i+1
, then pixels with color 2i are changed more frequently to
color 2i + 1 than pixels with color 2i + 1 are changed to color
2i. Thus the apparent randomness of the image pixels is
altered due the formation on PoVs.
The result of _
2
attack on the proposed mechanism is shown
in Figure 6.The probability shown in the graph is negligible
(near to zero). Thus the proposed method exhibits high
security against statistical attacks which utilize degree of
randomness of pixel values in an image to determine the
probability of embedding.







D. Key Strength Analysis
The generated decoding key for embedding an image of
size 150X150 was 17 digits long. The decodability of the key
is calculated according to the probability measure described in
(9). If P
decode
denotes the probability of the decidability of the
key through random guess or Brute Force attack then

P
decode
=
1
10
1
= 1x10
-17


The above values signify that the decoding key has a
sufficiently large key space and thus it offers good security
against Brute Force attack or random guessing.
V. COMPARISON WITH OTHER ALGORITHMS
The proposed algorithm has been compared with few of
the available popular algorithms to evaluate its performance
with respect to others. Different sizes of the standard Lena
image have been chosen as the secret information (test image)
for evaluation of the algorithms. The comparison is based on
the Fidelity (PSNR value) and MSE value for each algorithm
against increasing size of the secret information.
A. Fidelity (PSNR Value) based Comparison
Comparison of the degree of Fidelity of the proposed
technique with the other algorithms is done by considering the
Peak Signal to Noise Ratio (PSNR) between the cover and the
stego image for different image steganography techniques,
calculated separately for different sizes of the test image.
Table 2 lists the fidelity based comparative data.
Table 2: Fidelity (PSNR Value) comparison of Existing
Algorithms and the Proposed Algorithm
Algo LSBR JSteg F5
Proposed
Algo
Test
Image
Peak Signal to Noise Ratio (dB)
64X64 57.21 55.76 62.1 62.73
80X80 56.39 54.76 61.44 60.81
100X100 55.16 53.55 60.54 58.87
120X120 54.6 52.38 59.6 57.29
128X128 54.18 51.95 59.19 56.73
130X130 54.09 51.84 59.14 56.6
140X140 53.76 51.3 58.7 55.92
150X150 53.55 50.76 58.28 55.33
Average 54.49 52.79 59.87 58.03

The test results above clearly indicates that the proposed
algorithm has a higher PSNR (Peak Signal to Noise Ratio)
value in comparison with the Pure LSB, JSteg algorithms but
has slightly lower value as compared to F5 algorithm which is
because the image plane used for mapping the secret
information and final extraction is left unmodified. However,
the PSNR value of the proposed algorithm is much higher than
the threshold value of 40dB [15]. This ensures that the
algorithm has high fidelity of the stego image which is an

Figure 5: Histograms of Stego and Cover images

Figure 6:
2
steganalysis of the proposed method
important requirement for any image steganography
technique.
B. Embedding time based Comparison
The test results in Table 3 shows that the proposed
mechanism embeds same payload in less time as compared to
the other existing methods. Moreover, though both F5 and the
proposed algorithm deploy matrix encoding for reducing the
embedding effect, the proposed algorithm performs better in
terms of the time required for embedding the data payload.

Table 3: Embedding Time Comparison
VI. CONCLUSION AND FUTURE WORK
This paper proposes a novel approach for steganography in
which only a mapping of the secret information with the cover
is embedded rather than the actual secret information,
minimizing the risk of the secret information exposure even if
the payload is revealed to an adversary.
The technique offers High Fidelity of the stego image. It
produces negligible change in the color frequency histogram
and is highly imperceptible to _
2
attack. It also implements a
four-layered key based security mechanism to ensure the
safety of the hidden information and shows promising results
in terms of embedding time as compared to popular
steganography techniques.
Future work will focus on enhancing the mapping and the
embedding scheme. It will also emphasize on extending the
mapping concept introduced here for auto-generation of
realization map with the help of a simpler key.
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Algo LSBR JSteg F5
Proposed
Algorithm
Test
Image
Time to embed the secret information (sec)
64X64 0.44 1.43 5.07 0.19
80X80 0.64 1.53 6.48 0.38
100X100 0.89 1.75 7.92 0.53
120X120 1.19 1.93 14.32 0.71
128X128 1.23 2.08 17.15 0.80
130X130 1.21 2.08 17.51 0.81
140X140 1.45 2.28 22.08 0.84
150X150 1.61 2.49 28.00 1.05
Average 1.08 1.94 14.81 0.66