PSEUDO-RANDOM NUMBER GENERATOR

STEGANOGRAPHY TO SECURE CLOUD COMPUTING

Moolchand Sharma
sharma.cs06@gmail.com
Assistant Professor, CSE, MAIT

Jigyasa Sachdeva
jigyasa.sachdeva24@gmail.com
Student, CSE, MAIT

Varun Maheshwari
varunmaheshwari27@gmail.com
Student, CSE, MAIT

Mayank Arora
arora.mayank7@gmail.com
Student, CSE, MAIT

Abstract- Cloud computing is a convenient and flexible method to use computing assets such as
storage, database and networks while “on the cloud”, i.e. to access over the internet. Data
communicated is not secure and hence a technique was formulated which included- standard
encryption techniques is used to encrypt the data, followed by applying steganography and then
finally, splitting it across two or more hosts to transfer it. Steganography refers to encrypting
information in the pixels of an image. In the spatial format, an alternative to embedding
information sequentially in the picture elements of a cover image, a randomised method-
PseudoRandom Number Generator (PRNG) is implemented to improve the overall security and
efficacy of the system.

Keywords- Cloud Computing, Steganography, AES(Advanced encryption standard), PRNG

(Pseudo-Random Number Generator) , PSNR (Peak Signal-to-Noise Ratio), Splitting Algorithm

1. INTRODUCTION

The word ‘Steganography’ has its origins from the Greek words- “stegos” and “grafia”
meaning ‘cover’ and ‘writing’ respectively. Hence, steganography refers to coveted writing.
It is a field dealing with hiding secret information in a media. [19] One of the techniques
used in Steganography is Image compression. This further has two types- lossy compression
and lossless compression. Lossy compression does not conserve the righteousness of the
image and distorts it where as Lossless compression is able to conserve the authenticity of the
image data correctly. Graphic Interchange Format and BitMaP are examples of lossless
compression formats. [20] JPEG is an example for lossy compression format.

Steganography embeds a message inside a cover image. The following criteria define the
requirements of an algorithm-
 ● Invisibility- The cover image embedding the image should look exactly the same as it
was without the message. Hence, the invisibility quotient should be high.
● Payload Capacity- In traditional methods, less information was capable of being
encrypted. Payload capacity refers to capacity of a technique to hold information. This
should be high.
● Hiding Capacity- The amount of data that could be covered in proportion with the
amount of the cover object is known as the Concealing Capacity. More concealing
capacity leads to the utilisations of smaller cover images and hence, the data
communication needed to publicise the stego image is abated.
● Perceptual Transparency- Not being able to detect a hidden message is termed as
perceptual transparency.

Fig.1 depicts a basic model of steganography. Steganography process has three main
components- carrier, message, and password. Plain text, cipher text, or image are the types of
data in which the message can be sent by the sender. The password makes sure that only the
prescribed receiver can decode the received message by using the unique Stego-key. Stego-
image is the cover-image which is formed with the secretly hidden message.

2. LITERATURE REVIEW

Image steganography can be done in two types of domains- spatial and transform. Spatial
domain deals with changing the pixel’s binary values to message bits’ ASCII values.
Transform domain deals with changing the frequency coefficients of the image in which the
message is to be embedded.
One of the very common method used in the spatial domain is Least Significant Bit
Technique. In this the rightmost bit of every byte of a pixel is sequentially alternated with the
message bits. It is a convenient and easy technique. Any image is a 2-D matrix with scales of
colours in 1 or 3 bytes. 1 byte use black and white scales whereas 3 bytes employ RGB
models. For both these models, there exists LSB techniques with respective pros and cons. A
3- byte insertion would increase the size upto 5-6 Mb, increasing suspicion. A 1-byte
insertion would lead to severe distortion as the changes are very easily highlighted. But since
the cover page pixels are sequentially manipulated in the medium image, the encryption and
decryption of information becomes very easy.
The following are the drawbacks of LSB Technique-
- The most basic of LSBs insertion for 24-bit pictures inserts 3 bits/pixel. Since every
pixel is 24 bits, we can hide 3 hidden_bits/pixel / 24 data_bits/pixel = 1/8
hidden_bits/data_bits. So, for this case we hide 1 bit of the embedded message for
every 8 bits of the cover image. Hence, the payload capacity of the system is less.
- This method is very insecure and prone to distortions and changing the authentic data
meaning. This is because even a slight amount of noise causes huge distortion. Hence,
the system is not robust.

Hence, because of the above disadvantages of LSB; a new technique is implemented for
security while sending information over the cloud. The technique implemented is PRNG-
Psuedo-Random Number Generator.

3. PRELIMINARY WORK

In the previous paper, the prime objective was to create a protected data storing technique
that overpowers the traditional approach used for securing information transmission in cloud
computing. Services such as- applications, storage servers and networks is provided by cloud
computing. Nowadays most organisations are employing cloud services because of the
convenience and on the spot services it provides. [2] On using the cloud, a workstation
interacts with a wide variety of servers connected in the network. Cloud computing can be
managed because it is convenient and effortless to the service provider interaction. [1]
Steganography and the proposed splitting algorithm were important methodologies used in
the system design.
In this extended paper, we have cited a more efficient technique using the previous version to
make the entire system more efficient.

Existing system

The capacity to safeguard and protect information is crucial to the growth of electronic
commerce and data security. Cryptography refers to hiding the message in a stego media like
images,audio,video and thus create a encrypted data format. The information is converted
into an unreadable code during encryption. AES- Advanced Encryption Standard is a
symmetric key encryption standard which is used throughout the world to secure data and
maintain the data integrity.

3.1. AES (Advanced Encryption Standard)

AES (Advanced Encryption Standard) is a symmetric-key encryption standard for secret key
encryption. In other words, AES is based on a design principle known as Substitution
permutation network. It is comparably fast in both software and hardware. The algorithm
uses a combination of XOR Operation (Exclusive-OR), octet substitution with an S-box, row
and column rotations and a MixColumn. The basic algorithms of AES include Sub Bytes,
Shift Rows, Columns, Add Round Key.
Algorithm:
- Step 1: Produce the key from the inputted message.
- Step 2: Generate the cipher message using AES.
- Step 3: Transmit this message to the recipient.
This process is reversed at the receiving end to fetch the original message.

3.2. Steganography

Steganography is a technique used to hide useful information as stego-text in images called a

stego-image. A user at the receiving end having the key is able to fetch the concealed text
using reverse phenomenon.[21] An encrypted message depicts some useful information is
being sent but a message concealed within an image is difficult to be attacked because of its
perceptual transparency. This is where steganography has an undue advantage over
cryptography. In simple words, we could say that image steganography exploits the human
visual system (HVS). Even though it is slightly difficult to implement, with proper
methodologies we can hide informative text in an image.

Introduction to terms :
- Cover-media: the medium which acts as a carrier to hide the message
- Secret Message: data or information which is to be hidden
- Stego-media : carrier along with the hidden message

Least Significant bit:

The earlier paper used image steganography, i.e. an image is used as a cover image. The
most important concern is to create a identical stego image and the original image. Any
visible changes would violate the basic fundamental of image steganography. The image
steganography used in the previous paper used sequential Least Significant Bit method (LSB
method). In LSB method changes are made to the least significant bit of each pixel. The value
of pixel is replaced with the bit value of the message to create a stego image.All pixel are
converted into their respective equivalent binary representation. [22] Consider the following
illustration-
Pixel: (10101110 11001010 10111011 00010101 11010010 10001000 10111001 00010101)
Message: (10101111)
Result: (10101111 11001010 10111011 00010100 11010011 10001001 10111001 00010101)

Algorithm:
Step 1: Input the data and change it into its binary representation.
Step 2: Select the carrier image and repeat the same.
Step 3: Fetch the least significant bit of each pixel.
Step 4: substitute lsb value of all pixels with respective message bits.
An image will be generated. This is termed as the stego-image. At the receiving end, this is
processed to get back the original information.
3.3. Split Algorithm

The splitting algorithm divides the data over multiple hosts which are not connected directly
to similar network.The original message can only be merged by the owner who has access to
all the hosts and thus can gather the splitted data.In the earlier paper splitting algorithm is
applied after applying sequential lsb technique in image stegnography. The stego image is
taken as an input by splitting algorithm to split the data in 'n' numbers and stored in
randomly chosen server and sent by different hosts.

3.4. System Design

1. Begin.
2. Input the data or information to be transmitted on the cloud.
3. Apply AES Encryption to the data or information
4. Perform steganography using LSB algorithm, i.e. hide the message in a cover image.
5.Using split algorithm divide the stego-image into n parts and send over
6. Recover the splitted n parts of stego- image and combine them to create the stego image
7. Recover the message using de-steganography.
8. Recover and generate the original message using decryption technique.
9. End.

4. PROPOSED SYSTEM

Because of the drawbacks mentioned; Least Significant Bit is a traditionally verified less
efficient method to perform steganography. LSB has a huge Mean Squared Error which
causes distortion to the image. Hence, a new method is required to increase the Peak Signal to
Noise Ratio. Hence, any method proposed should have the following characteristics-
- If the data in encrypted before passing it into the image, even if the data is detected; it
has to be decrypted first. This encryption technique should be employed in a manner
such that the transformation does not cause blurring of the image. The encrypted data
should not cause distortion to the image.
- In this paper, we are using randomised placements of bits of the message in the pixels
of the image. The technique would use a prime number and select a specific area to
embed the information.
- Post image steganography, the image is splitted and sent to two or more hosts.

Pseudo Random Number Generator:

Pseudo random number generator is a technique which generates a series of unique numbers
with respect to a set of numbers. Let’s consider a prime number- ‘p’. The function used to
generate these values are- ‘x2 mod p’ for all values of x such that- 2x < p;
‘p- x2 mod p’ for all other values of x in the range.
For example- Let us take a prime number ‘11’. For all the integral values of x less than 5.5
(13/2), generate unique numbers by employing the function- x2 mod p; i.e. {0,1,2,3,4,5}. For
rest of the integral values {6,7,8,9,10}, unique numbers are generated by the function- p- x2
mod p.
For x=0 : x2 mod p = 0 mod 11 = 0.
For x=4 : x2 mod p = 16 mod 11 = 5.
For x= 7 : p- x2 mod p = 11- (49 mod 11) = 11-5 = 6.
All the numbers get unique random numbers.

Consider the pixels in grey and blue scale of an image, given in the figure below.

Let’s take an example of embedding the message “abc” in the image. The ASCII code’s
binary equivalents of the letters are- 01100001, 01100010, 01100011. We are considering 3-
2-3 substitution. 8 bits are divided in slots of 3, 2 and 3 respectively. The random numbered
positions generated are- {1, 4, 5, 3, 8, 6, 2, 7, 9}. This means the 1st 3 bits go to the 1st
pixel’s blue and green bits. The next two bits go to the 4th pixels’ blue scale. The last 3 go to
the 5th pixel’s blue and green scale. The substitution happens in from right to left- Least
significant to Most significant bits order to decrease the Mean Squared Error value. Amongst
the 3 bits substituted in blue and green are- 2 in blue and 1 in green respectively. Hence, the
order is : { (2 blue, 1 green), (2 blue), (2 blue, 1 green), (2 blue, 1 green), (2 blue), (2 blue, 1
green) …}.

Consider the pseudo code of the proposed method is as follows:

Input: Cover Image C, Secret Message n, Permutation P
Output: Stego Image S.
Steps:
1. Split the Cover Image C into three layers- Red (R), Green (G), Blue (B).
2. Convert H, and I into blocks; H= {H1,H2,H3...bn},I= { I1,I2,I3...gn... } where each block
represents only one pixel.
3. Transform all block from H and I to its ASCII format.
4. Split n into characters, n= {n1,n2,n3….n... }.
5. Take ni from N, and change it to its binary form
6. Take an array Y of integer numbers.
7. For i =1 to length (Y)
8. Generate RN (i) using PRNG generator by using equations 3rd, and 4th. Every number
of these random numbers will represent the position of the pixels in C.
9. End for.
10. Select 8 numbers from RN (i) which located between
{1 to 8}, transfer these numbers in different array called Y.
11. for v=1 to len (M)*3
12. RS(v)=Y(i)+8
13. End for
14. For messageCnt=1 to len(M)
15. L=1
16. Take from B, and from G.
17. H(RS(L),7:8)=(messageCnt ,1:2)
18. I(RS(L),end)= (messageCnt,3)
19. L++
20. H(RS(L),7:8)= (messageCnt ,4:5)
21. L++
22. H(RS(l),7:8)=(messageCnt ,6:7)
23. I(RS(l),end)= (messageCnt,8)
24. L++
25. end for
26. Convert h, and I from binary to decimal system
27.construct the stego Image S Merge the three layers R, G, B
Implementation Figures
1) Creating stego image (encoding and decoding)- embedding the message in the
image

2) Using Split algorithm - The stego image is split into multiple pieces

3) Transfer of the splitted stego-image – The multiple parts are shared to the desired
location to random servers
4) Combining the n-parts – At the receiver end the splitted n parts are combined into a
single image.

4. FUTURE SCOPE AND CONCLUSION

In this paper, a Steganographic technique has been suggested, which has a higher embeding
capacity and a improved PSNR as compared to trivial sequential LSB, by using Pseudo
Random Number Generator in the least significant bit (lsb), the encryption is more strong.
The method is implemented in the previous system design to increase the system efficiency.
The future scope of the paper can be extended to use of various steganography methods in
the transform domain as well as spatial domain includes audio, video steganography.
Different encryption techniques stronger than AES can be introduced to further improve the
system efficacy.
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