Hybrid Steganography for Enhanced Information Security

Abstract

The constant integration of technology in society has made it easy for personal information privacy to be violated. In response to this challenge, this paper develops a steganographic technique using cryptography, colour models, and Genetic Algorithm (GA). The proposed method starts with the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) encryption of the secret text. After that, the encrypted data is embedded in an input image through a two-fold hiding technique. Initially, the input-image is altered into the Hue Saturation Intensity (HIS) colour model, and a particular model is chosen for the next process. Then the image is segmented into blocks, and the secret text is then hidden employing the Least Significant Bit (LSB) technique on some randomly chosen bytes. To improve the hiding efficiency of the hiding process, a genetic algorithm (GA) is used to find the peak signal-to-noise ratio of the blocks. A particular block that achieves the maximum PSNR value is chosen as the block that is suitable for embedding. In the second stage, all blocks are hidden according to the result of a GA, while the byte distribution is as optimal as possible. The performance of the proposed method is determined using functions like PSNR and Mean Squared Error (MSE). The results indicate that the method is fast and effective at keeping the secret information reliable while also maintaining the output- image quality.