Introduction

• Steganography is the art and science of writing hidden messages

in such a way that no one apart from the sender and intended
recipient, suspects the existence of the message, a form of
security through obscurity.

• The word steganography is of Greek origin and means

"concealed writing“ from the word steganos meaning "covered or
protected", and graphein meaning "to write".

• Generally, messages will appear to be something else: images,

articles, shopping lists, or some other covertext and, classically,
the hidden message may be in invisible ink between the visible
lines of a private letter.

• Steganography includes the concealment of information within

computer files.

• In digital steganography, electronic communications may include

steganographic coding inside of a transport layer, such as a
document file, image file, program or protocol.

Steganographic techniques

• 1.Physical steganography

• Steganography has been widely used, including in recent

historical times and the present day.

• Hidden messages on paper written in secret ink, under other

messages or on the blank parts of other messages.
 • 2.Digital steganography

• Digital steganography techniques include:

• Concealing messages within the lowest bits of noisy images or

sound files.

• Pictures embedded in video material (optionally played at slower

or faster speed).

• Changing the order of elements in a set.

Steganography-Art of sending Secret Messages

Carrier File - A file which has hidden information inside of it.

Steganalysis - The process of detecting hidden information inside of a

file.

Stego-Medium - The medium in which the information is hidden.

Redundant Bits - Pieces of information inside a file which can be

overwritten or altered with any damage

Payload - The information which is the be concealed.

Steganographic communication senders and receivers agree on a

steganographic system and a shared secret key that determines how a
message is encoded in the cover medium. To send a hidden message,
for example, Mr.X creates a new image with a digital camera. Mr. X
supplies the steganographic system with his shared secret and his
message. The steganographic system uses the shared secret to
determine how the hidden message should be encoded in the
redundant bits.
The result is a stego image that Mr.X sends to Mr.Y. When Mr.Y
receives the image, he uses the shared secret and the agreed on
steganographic system to retrieve the hidden message.

Steganographic Methods

There are numerous methods used to hide information inside of

Picture, Audio and Video files.

The two most common methods are:

Least Significant Byte (LSB)

Injection

Least Significant Byte (LSB)

When files are created there are usually some bytes in the file that
aren’t really needed, or at least aren’t that important. These areas of
the file can be replaced with the information that is to be hidden, with
out significantly altering the file or damaging it. This allows a person to
hide information in the file and make sure that no human could detect
the change in the file.

The LSB method works best in picture files that have a high resolution
and use many different colors, and with audio files that have many
different sounds and that are of a high bit rate.

The LSB method usually does not increase the file size, but depending
on the size of the information that is to be hidden inside the file, the
file can become noticeably distorted.

Injection

Injection is quite a simple method which simply involves directly

injecting the secret information into the carrier file. The main problem
with this method is that it can significantly increase the size of the
carrier file. Nowadays, messages are typically hidden within digital
images, video and audio.

Steganography In Images

Steganography In Audio

Steganography In Video

Steganography In Documents

Steganography In Images

When hiding information inside images the Least Significant Byte

method is usually used. An image file is simply a file that shows
different colors and intensities of light on different areas of an image.

The best type of image file to hide information inside of is a 24 Bit

Bitmap image. When an image is of high quality and resolution it is a
lot easier to hide and mask information inside of. It is important to
remember that if you hide information inside of an image file and that
file is converted to another image format, it is most likely the hidden
information inside will be lost.

Steganography In Audio

Hiding information inside Audio files the technique usually used is low
bit encoding which is similar to LSB that is used in Images. The
problem with low bit encoding is that it is usually noticeable to the
human ear.

Echo data hiding is yet another method of hiding information inside an

audio file. By simply adding extra sound to an echo inside an audio
file, information can be concealed.

Spread Spectrum is another method used to conceal information inside

of an audio file. In this method adding random noises to the signal the
information is conceal inside a carrier and spread across the frequency
spectrum.

Steganography In Video

Discrete Cosine Transform method is used when hide information

inside the video program.

DCT works by slightly changing the each of the images in the video,
only so much though so it’s isn’t noticeable by the human eye. To be
more precise about how DCT works, DCT alters values of certain parts
of the images, it usually rounds them up.

Steganography In Documents

The use of Steganography in documents works by simply adding white

space and tabs to the ends of the lines of a document.

This type of Steganography is extremely effective, because the use

white space and tabs is not visible to the human eye at all. White
space and tabs occur naturally in documents, so there isn’t really any
possible way using this method of Steganography would cause
someone to be suspicious.

Steganalysis: The Investigation of Hidden

Information

The goal of steganography is to avoid drawing suspicion to the

transmission of a hidden message. If suspicion is raised, then this goal
is defeated.

The detection of steganographically encoded packages is called

steganalysis.

The simplest method to detect modified files, however, is to compare

them to the originals. To detect information being moved through the
graphics on a website, for example, an analyst can maintain known-
clean copies of these materials and compare them against the current
contents of the site. The differences (assuming the carrier is the same)
will compose the payload.

In general, using an extremely high compression rate makes

steganography difficult, but not impossible; while compression errors
provide a good place to hide data, high compression reduces the
amount of data available to hide the payload in, raising the encoding
density and facilitating easier detection.

Some of the techniques used in the manipulation of images are:

• Cropping

• Eliminating Image Portions

• Rotating Images

• Blurring

• Reducing Pixel Contrast

• Increasing Pixel Contrast

• Addition or Removal of Noise

• Addition of Bitwise Messages

Once detected, a Stego image hidden message can be modified. An
automated tool used to detect the steganographed data in image is the
Stegdetect. It is easy to detect various steganographics procedure to
embed the secret data that is hidden within the images.

Misuse of Steganography-

Steganography is also used for sending malicious files such as Malware

after hiding them inside the innocent documents such as images, pdf’
or word files.

When properly implemented, steganography can be difficult to detect,

but not impossible. Steganography detection can be used to prevent
communication of malicious data.

Steganography can make use of unlimited legal means to use any web
site without attracting the attention of anybody, including the owners
of the target web sites themselves, due to this it is sometime use for
unsocial activities.

Steganography is a two-part word of Greek origin. “Stegano”, or

“covered” and “graphy”
or “writing” does not convey the transformation of information, but
rather its hidden aspect. The
first steganographic technique was developed in ancient Greece
around 440 B.C.. Herodotus’s
Histories describes two types of the earliest steganography. The first
type involved the shaving of
a slave’s head, then a tattoo was inscribed on the scalp. When the
slave’s hair had grown back and
hidden the message, the slave was sent to warn of the Persians’
impending invasion. The recipient
once again shaved the slave’s head and retrieved the important
warning. Another method was to
modify ancient writing tablets. The layer of wax covering the tablets
was the surface upon which
messages were written. However Demeratus, a Greek exiled into
Persia, devised a plan to hide a
message by removing the layer of wax and writing directly on the
underlying wood a warning to
Sparta that the Persians were planning an invasion. The tablets were
then covered again with wax
and appeared unused to the examiners of the shipment. Another
ancient application of
A Study Of Steganography 4
steganography, and a great example of a null cipher is the method of
wrapping a ribbon around a
wooden staff from top to bottom, writing across the ribbon and
unraveling it. The clear text was all
there, only someone with the same size diameter staff could read the
message, and most
importantly, the fact that a secret message even existed was hidden.
Much later, during World War
II, the German military leveraged microfiche technology to create
microdots. Microdots consisted
of pictures and text messages which were shrunk down to the size of a
period and used in the text
of an otherwise innocent letter or memorandum. Many of them
escaped detection by Allied forces.

Steganography v Cryptography

• Both have been used throughout recorded history as means to

protect information
• Cryptographic techniques "scramble" messages so if intercepted,
the messages cannot be understood
• Steganography, in an essence, "camouflages" a message to hide
its existence and make it seem "invisible" thus concealing the
fact that a message is being sent altogether

Micro dots
• Microdots are photographs the size of a printed period having
the clarity of standard-sized typewritten pages.
• The first microdots were discovered masquerading as a period on
a typed envelope carried by a German agent in 1941.
 --Micro Dot

Null ciphers (unencrypted messages)

• Fishing freshwater bends and saltwater coasts rewards anyone

feeling stressed. Resourceful anglers usually find masterful
leapers fun and admit swordfish rank overwhelming anyday.
• Secret message: Send Lawyers, Guns, and Money
Advantages of
S t e g a n o g r a p h y
Securely storing sensitive data, such as hiding
system passwords or keys within other files.
Difficult to detect.
Network surveillance and monitoring systems
will not flag messages or files that contain
Steganography data.
Safe Email

Live Demo
Secure Mail
Demos on Data hiding inside a
image
Demos on how data injection

Applications for Steganography in an Open

Systems Environment
In this section we will look at some of the possible applications for
steganography and
then close by pointing out some of the more popular steganographic
tools available today.

The three most popular and researched uses for steganography in an

open systems
environment are covert channels, embedded data and digital
watermarking.
Covert channels in TCP/IP involve masking identification information in
the TCP/IP
headers to hide the true identity of one or more systems. This can be
very useful for any
secure communications needs over open systems such as the Internet
when absolute
secrecy is needed for an entire communication process and not just
one document as
mentioned next. Using containers (cover messages) to embed secret
messages into is by
far the most popular use of Steganography today. This method of
Steganography is very
useful when a party must send a top secret, private or highly sensitive
document over an
open systems environment such as the Internet. By embedding the
hidden data into the
cover message and sending it, you can gain a sense of security by the
fact that no one
knows you have sent more than a harmless message other than the
intended recipients.
Although not a pure steganographic technique, digital watermarking is
very common in
today's world and does use Steganographic techniques to embed
information into
documents.
Digital watermarking is usually used for copy write reasons by
companies or entities that wish to protect their property by either
embedding their trademark into their property or by concealing serial
numbers/license information in software, etc. Digital watermarking is
very important in the detection and prosecution of software
pirates/digital thieves.

Advantage & Disadvantages

The obvious advantage of steganography is that you can hide a secret

message in another message, be it text, image, audio, or whatever
media you decide to hide your secret in. The main problem with this is
that either you or the person you're sending the "secret" message to
need to be able to find the message. And if you can find it, then the
bad guys you want to keep the message a secret from can find it, too.

Least Signifiacant Bit

Manupalation
_ Idea is that the least significant bit of a byte can
change with little change to the overall file
_ Consider a 8-bit grey scale image
– One pixel of information is stored using 8 bits.
– There are 256 different variations of grey.
10010110

MSB LSB LSB –wwewontinued

_ Change in the LSB information of some area of

the image will not be noticeable by naked eye.

_ Utilizing this fact the message is embedded
 10101101 00101010 10100010 10010001 10…
10101100 00101011 10100011 10010000 10…

LSB advantages and

disadvantages
_ Advantages
– Does not change the
size of the file
– Is harder to detect
than other
steganography
techniques

_ Disadvantages
– Normally must use
the original program
to hide and reveal
data
– If the picture with the
hidden information is
converted to another
format, then the
hidden data may be

lost

FIGURE 1. The cover_image (5th wave.gif), hidden_data file (virusdetectioninfo.txt), and stego_key.