JOURNAL OF INFORMATION, KNOWLEDGE AND RESEARCH IN ELECTRONICS AND COMMUNICATION ENGINEERING STEGANOGRAPHY USING LSB ALGORITHM AND RGB DECOMPOSITION Ms.E.Suneetha1, Smt. D.Swetha2, Ms.E.Sumalatha3, Ms.P.Sridevi4 & Ms.Sk.Rajeena Sulthana5 Asst.Professor, Asst.Professor, Ist yr M.Tech(CSP) , Dept.of ECE Dept. of ECE Dept. of ECE 4/4 ECE BWEC, Bapatla Engineering College Bapatla Engineering College BWEC Bapatla,Guntur Bapatla, Guntur Bapatla, Guntur Bapatla,Guntur emmela.suneetha@gmail.com swethachand7@gmail.com latha.emmela@gmail.com sridevi.pulamala@gmail.com shaikrajeena33@gmail.com ABSTRACT: The rapid development of data transfer through internet made it easier to send the data more accurately and faster to the destination. One of the most important factors of information technology and communication is the security of the information. Steganography is mostly preferred to the security in the communication systems, which is the art and science of invisible communication. This paper deals with image steganography using Least Significant Bit (LSB) algorithm. Steganography is the method through which the existence of a message is kept secret. This is accomplished through embedding a media file such as image, text, sound, video etc., in the information to be transferred and hence hiding the existence of the information to be communicated. This paper gives a brief idea about image steganography that makes use of Least Significant Bit (LSB) algorithm. The proposed method is simple, fast, robust to attack and improves the image quality. Keywords: Encryption, Decryption, LSB, Carrier Information security is the protection of the image image, and the systems or hardware that is used to store and Stego-image, Steganography, RGB decomposition. transmit the images. I: INTRODUCTION Steganography is the art and science of invisible efficient method through which the existence of the communication. This can be achieved by hiding the information into the original information. The word steganography is derived from the greek words “stegos” meaning “cover” and “graphia” which means “writing”. In most of the image processing applications, steganography is used to hide the information in the images. message can be Stegnography is the most kept secret. This can be accomplished through hiding the information in another image, video or audio file [1][2]. .Hence the existing information is hidden secretly. Stegangraphy supports different types of digital formats that are used for hiding the data. These files are known as carrier files. To achieve a high performance approach, both embedding ratio and image quality are considered as important issues. This paper presents the high-performance on achieving security. The steganography system scenario is shown in figure.1 II: CONVENTIONAL METHODS In the image-processing applications, the conventional methods that are most frequently used are cryptography, watermarking and steganography using Least- Significant Bit (LSB) Algorithm. Cryptography is the method in which encryption and Fig.1: Basic Steganography System Scenario decryption are performed based on the secret key, which is known only to the sender and receiver. The ISSN: 0975 – 6779| NOV 11 TO OCT 12 | VOLUME – 02, ISSUE - 01 Page 326 JOURNAL OF INFORMATION, KNOWLEDGE AND RESEARCH IN ELECTRONICS AND COMMUNICATION ENGINEERING original information is embedded by following some 2(b) represents the encryption and decryption encoding process in which the data is re-inserted processes in cryptography. This paper describes the based on certain procedure. In order to decode the steganography algorithm that is most suitable for message at the receiver, the reverse process is business and in commercial applications. followed which is done at the encoding process. The III: PROPOSED METHOD LSB hiding technique hides the secret image difference between steganography and cryptography directly in the least two significant bits in the image is that pixels. Therefore, it affects the image resolution to reduce the image quality and make the image easy to attack[2]. Therefore a new technique that is able to make the secret message more secure and enhance the quality of the image is proposed. The proposed method hides the secret message based on searching about the identical values between the secret image and the image pixels by decomposing the original image into red, blue and green pixel values. The figure.3 illustrates hiding of the two least-significant Fig.2 (a) Encryption Process bits: HIDING ALGORITHM Begin Scan the original image and encode it in the binary format. Encode the secret image to be embedded in the binary format. Ensure that the secret image size is less than that of the original image size. Fig.2 (b) Decryption Process Iteration: 1 Cryptography is preferred to keep the contents of the Choose the pixel of the original image in a sequential message secretly whereas steganography is the order. method which keeps the existence of the message Now divide the original image into three parts (Red, secret. These two methods protect information from Green and Blue). the unwanted parties and security attacks. The other Hide two-by-two bits of the secret message in each technology that is closely related to these methods is part of the pixel value by searching the identical bits. digital water-marking, in which an image is If the identical bits are satisfied then set the image embedded into the original image such that it helps in with new values. signifying the ownership for the purpose of copyright Otherwise hide the bits in the two least-significant protection[5]. Water-marking technique enables the bits. intellectual property of the owner to identify the Save the hiding location in the image customers who break their licensing agreement by end supplying the property to third parties. Fig.2(a) and Set the image with the new values and save End ISSN: 0975 – 6779| NOV 11 TO OCT 12 | VOLUME – 02, ISSUE - 01 Page 327 JOURNAL OF INFORMATION, KNOWLEDGE AND RESEARCH IN ELECTRONICS AND COMMUNICATION ENGINEERING The images Fig.5(a) and Fig. 5(b) shows the carrier image and the secret image. Fig.6 represents the stego-image which is obtained after hiding by using the RGB and Least-Significant Bit method. Fig.3 Hiding by using least significant method Carrier messages such as image, audio, video, text etc., can be used as the carrier file based on the present technologies. The image file is the most popular method used for the steg-analysis. The images are mainly divided into three types. They are: Binary (Black-White) Gray-scale Red-Green-Blue Image. Fig.5(a) Original Image (cover image) Fig.4: Steganography using RGB Decomposition The image has one-bit value per pixel and is represented by 0 and 1 for black and white pixels respectively. The gray-scale has 8-bits value per pixel and is represented as 00000000 for black and 11111111 for white pixels. The RGB image has 24- Fig. 5(b) Secret image IV: RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS bit values per pixel. The representation for black and The proposed method is the proved to be most white pixels is given by (00000000,00000000 and efficient method than the conventional methods. 00000000) and (11111111, 11111111 and 11111111) Since, RGB decomposition method is followed along respectively. The RGB method is the mot significant with the least- significant bit method in the hiding of and is proved to be efficient as it contains a lot of the secret image in the original image, therexists no information secret loss in the image quality as well as the image information with a bit change in the Image resolution perceptibility. Also, the changes in bits is made only [3]. It improves the image quality and makes the with respect to the non-identical bits, the image message more secure. This paper uses the RGB resolution is not affected. image as the carrier and the least- Significant Bits The main intention of this paper work is to develop a (LSB) to hide the secret message. The Fig.4 steganographic application which provides good represents the RGB decomposition and hiding security when compared to the other conventional method. methods. Also, this method protects the message that helps in hiding the ISSN: 0975 – 6779| NOV 11 TO OCT 12 | VOLUME – 02, ISSUE - 01 Page 328 JOURNAL OF INFORMATION, KNOWLEDGE AND RESEARCH IN ELECTRONICS AND COMMUNICATION ENGINEERING Kaufmann.Boshop.M,2005.Introduction to computer security. Is ted. Pearson publications. Fig.6Stego-image from the stego-attacks. It is not possible to change the information by the unauthorized persons as the secret image is embedded into the original by using the RGB decomposition and the least-significant method, where there is no chance of knowing the secret image [5]. V: FUTURE SCOPE The proposed method is more efficient in the image processing applications. The only disadvantage of this method is that the compression mainly depends on the carrier image size. Work has to be contributed to improve the compression ratio and the image resolution also should not be lost. The work made can be extended by performing the other bit-plane slicing methods inorder to reduce the complexity and to increase the efficiency during the transmission. REFRENCES 1. N Ghoshal,J K Mandal-A steganographic scheme for color image authentication ,Recent Trends in Information Technology ICRTIT 2011 International Conference 2. N.Johnson, Digital Water-marking and Steganography: Fundamentals and techniques, The Computer Journal (2009). 3. Chan,C.K Cheng, L.M,2004, Hiding data in images by simple LSB substitution, Pattern recoginition Vol.37, Pergarmon. 4. Amirthanjan.R,Akhila.R,Deepika Chowdavarapu, 2010. A comparative analysis of image steganography, International Journal of Computer Application pp.210,Bandyopadhyay,S.K,2010. 5. Bloom,J.A et al.,2008. Digital watermarking and steganography. 2nd ed. Morgan ISSN: 0975 – 6779| NOV 11 TO OCT 12 | VOLUME – 02, ISSUE - 01 Page 329