StegCure: a comprehensive steganographic tool using enhanced LSB scheme

Protected and encrypted data sent electronically is vulnerable to various attacks such as spyware and attempts in breaking and revealing the data. Thus, steganography was introduced to conceal a secret message into an unsuspicious cover medium so that it can be sent safely through a public communication channel. Suspicion becomes the significant key determinant in the field of steganography. In other words, an efficient stegnographic algorithm will not cause any suspicion after the hidden data is embedded. This paper presents an overview of steganography on GIF image format in order to explore the potential of GIF in information hiding research. A platform, namely StegCure is proposed by using an amalgamation of three different Least Significant Bit (LSB) insertion algorithms that is able to perform steganographic methods. This paper explains about the enhancement of the Least Significant Bits (LSB) insertion techniques from the most basic and conventional 1 bit to the LSB colour cycle method. Various kinds of existing steganographic methods are discussed and some inherent problems are highlighted along with some issues on existing solutions. In comparison with the other data hiding applications, StegCure is a more comprehensive security utility where it offers user-friendly functionality with interactive graphic user interface and integrated navigation capabilities. Furthermore, in order to sustain a higher level of security, StegCure has implemented a Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) mechanism at both sender and receiver sites. With this feature, StegCure manages to restrict any unauthorized user from retrieving the secret message through trial and error. Besides, we also highlight a few aspects in LSB methods on image steganography. At the end of the paper, the evaluation results of the hybrid method in StegCure are presented. The future work will be focused in assimilation of more diversified methods into a whole gamut of steganography systems and its robustness towards steganalysis.

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