See discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.

net/publication/323197176

Design of image steganography using LSB XOR substitution method

Conference Paper · April 2017

DOI: 10.1109/ICCSP.2017.8286444

CITATIONS READS
19 1,151

2 authors:

Chandni Arun Senthil Murugan

Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham
8 PUBLICATIONS   27 CITATIONS    20 PUBLICATIONS   57 CITATIONS   

SEE PROFILE SEE PROFILE

Some of the authors of this publication are also working on these related projects:

Integrated Cloud based Smart Home with Automation and Remote controllability View project

Embedded View project

All content following this page was uploaded by Chandni Arun on 20 November 2019.

The user has requested enhancement of the downloaded file.

 International Conference on Communication and Signal Processing, April 6-8, 2017, India
Design of Image Steganography using LSB
XOR Substitution Method
Chandni Arun and Senthil Murugan

Abstract—This paper is mainly investigates the design of image
steganography, where steganography is depicted in different
ways. Steganography was first initiated from Greek, although
ancient people made a conception to communicate without the
knowledge of the third person. Steganography is virtually
categorized into 2 words where “stegano/stego” indicate as
“covered” (where the messages are being hidden) and “graphy“
indicate as writing. Here the method is used for describing the
design is the LSB XOR substitution method whereas it improves
the security usage. It is one of the more appropriate and simplest
method among the other function. It is a method of data hiding
method that is been used in favor of security purposes.. This
paper is also attached to give a brief idea through algorithm using
encryption and decryption technique which showcase the security
betterment. Here we have a random 8 bit secret key that initially
XOR with the RGB colors which leads to hold the embedding of
data sharing and then after replace the LSB of pixel we get
extracted data which is an actual message from encoding method..
It has the storage capacity to hide a large number of
characteristics than the existing features of data hiding and also
data sharing. The Modern steganography is used to provide a
developed security on mobiles devices such as ensuring a security
on the android and check and verify the latest operating system to
add up some betterment in the device.
Index Terms—Image Steganography, (least significant bit)
LSB method, Cryptography, Encryption, Decryption, PSNR
(peak to signal noise ratio), OPAP (Optimum pixel adjustment
procedure).
I. INTRODUCTION
S TEGANOGRAPHY is an arrangement of concealed
information’s through text, image, plaintext, images, and
videos. But the image steganography is frequently used in the
world of digital media. Steganography is literally means the
covered graphy, which originated from Greek for
communicating purpose and sharing the information. Initially
the sharing of information was done using the wax tablet,
invisible inks, microdots, digital signature and arranging of
characters. Depending upon the development of networks the
hiding of information has statically improved using the
proposed system of the above methods. Today the world is
Chandni Arun and Senthil Murugan are with Department of Electronics
and Communication Engineering, Amrita School of Engineering, Amritapuri,
Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham, Amrita University, India. (e-mail:
chandniarun85@gmail.com, senthilmurugan@am.amrita.edu).
978-1-5090-3800-8/17/$31.00 ©2017 IEEE
0674
much more concern about their security and protection when
they share the details about the information. Sometimes the
information is stored in the digital computers and networks
that are relevant to keep the topics so easily for
communication. People are conscious about their security, not
to get revealed to the third person without the knowledge of
the sender and intended receipts. One of the most significant
methods of steganography is the image steganography since it
has been playing a vital role in today’s computer and network
imagination. Digital image steganography is frequently used
for transmitting the details for communication process.
Cryptography and steganography are most common terms for
embedding the information. But whereas the cryptography
have a bit of drawback than steganography because the
encrypted message which was stored in a cover image is
visible to the third person and using retrieval method the
encrypted message is possible to be seen properly. The
encrypted message has been store in different positions in least
significant bit. The secret key is most prior password to open
the hidden message so that the security becomes more eligible
to contact into the carrier image. Sending the encrypted
message will make the proposed system to indulge in terms of
their security alignment. The assurance of the hidden
information in the carrier image will be transformed will be
same as the original image without any similarity to provide
the actual existence of the secret key until the fact was
provided by the sender or the authorized person. It does give
any opportunity to authorize the secret without the
acknowledgement of the authorized person. The disadvantages
of using the image steganography that it is quite dangerous in
the field of terrorism and hackers send some Trojans (virus) to
organization applicable to disable the information that is been
hidden in the carrier image. But the amount of hidden
specifically lead to modify the stego medium that will
withstand the information before it destroys.
Section II describes the architecture of image steganography.
Section III describes the Literature review. Section IV explains
about experimental result for proposed system. Section V
discuss about the result. At last, Section VI concludes the
paper.
II. ARCHITECTURE OF IMAGE STEGANOGRAPHY
In this architecture the sender and receiver shares same
algorithm that is encryption and decryption. First the cover
text will read then the message is being is hidden. The stego
key is the place where the actual message is been stored in
sender and receiver section. The color image transformed into
grayscale image because the grayscale has less palette of color
than the color image and also has 266 bits along with the pixel.
It reduces the shades gradually from byte to byte. In
grayscale image a pixel has 8 bits that is reduced in shades.
The grayscale is mainly for extracting the stego generation.
The image should be limited to 300K bits of data in a carrier
image. Convert the the text into binary format using the
operation called positioning of even and odd technique or
secret message partioning.. So that the alphabets are separated
into even and odd position which is 0 and 1 bits respectively.
In order to make system robust the stego key is shared into
dual layer using the odd and even partioning. Next step is to
calculate the LSB of each pixel of a carrier image and
substitute LSB of carrier image with each bit individually.
Write few instructions in the stego image which has been
combined together from the cover image and stego key.
Similarly for extracting the message follow the above step.
The architecture of the image architecture is shown in Fig. 1 Fig. 2. Converting image into RGB matrixes

III. LITERATURE SURVEY

It is one of the simplest methods of capturing the instructions
from the image. Fig 1 is the architecture structure which gives
a brief idea of the function. There are 24 true colors where the
24 bits per pixel is taken initially for color image here the
color image. It is converted into gray-scale image. So the true
colors are categorized into 3 bytes depending upon the
intensities of the color. This is formed into 3 primary colors
they are Red, Green, and Blue. Each pixel of primary colors
are divided into 3 types of matrix in order correlate the
primary colors. Fig 2 is the split matrix of RGB form.
The 2D array is reshaped to binary integer value (1D array).
The instructions are hidden into some pixel according the
users request. The details are converting into binary format.
Each of the pixels is stored in the form of 8 bit random key.
Fig 3 is the 1-D bit stream of hidden information.
Fig. 1. Architecture of Image steganography
Fig. 3. 1-D bit stream of Hidden Information
A. HIDING METHOD
To hide the information in image steganography having Red,
Green, Blue primary colors into 3 different matrixes. Fig 4 is
the hiding technique. Here the secret key and Red matrix are
initiated for decision making. Then it is replaced with either
the green and blue matrix. XOR operation is done at least
significant bit of an image. 8 bit random key and the pixel 1 of
2nd bit of red matrix are XOR with the pixel. XOR of bit 1 and
0 bit is 1. So the pixel must satisfy and send to the encrypted
message and that encrypted message will hide the value from
the 1st LSB bit of the pixel 1. If the answer is 0 while XOR
operation is done then the pixel will skip but the next step is
continued with the same 8 bit random key. This type of
process is continued depending on its length of the encrypted
message.
B. RECOVERY METHOD
Here the matrixes are taken from stego images .Similar to the
hiding technique but for recovery process the bits has been
fetched from the pixel and stored it in the encrypted message.
8 bit random key and the pixel 1 of 2 nd bit of red matrix are
XOR with the pixel. XOR of bit 1 and 0 bit is 1. So the pixel
must satisfy and send to the encrypted message and that
encrypted message will hide the value from the 1st LSB bit of
the pixel 1. If the answer is 0 while XOR operation is done then

0675
the pixel will skip but the next step is continued with the same 8
bit random key. The bits are fetched into the LSB of the same
pixel given in the stego image. After this step is done the
decrypted image is fetched from the stego image. This type of
recovery process is continued depending on its length of the
secret message. Fig 5 is the recovery method.
Fig. 4. Hidden Technique of hidden information
Fig. 5. Recovery Technique of Hidden Information
0676
IV. EXPERIMENTAL RESULT FOR PROPOSED
SYSTEM
The PSNR is determined in db. If the value is higher than the
PSNR the quality is increased and lowers the distortion. Table
shows the comparison of PSN R with applies formula. Table I is
the expression for the proposed system. That is the experimental
results of the proposed system given below.
V. RESULTS IN MATLAB AND VERILOG
A. MATLAB
The proposed design of Image Steganography simulated in
Matlab and Modelsim 6.5 RT L simulator is the software tool
used for synthesis in FPGA.
In Matlab input image and carrier image is fed at first using
different image format such as JPG, BMP, GIF and PNG for
embedding process. Fig 6 is the input and carrier image. The
carrier image is decomposed of two major cases like one is
embedding the text and another is decomposed for embedding the
image. The carrier is the secret payload for cover. Then the carrier
image is resized to crop and rotate the unwanted file format which
will make the image intended for the positive changes. Fig 7 is the
resized and encrypted image similar to the original image. The
resizing of image is destroying the secret key in the carrier image
and then the image is compiling to form an encrypted image.
Combining of stego image and the encrypted image is molded into
a decrypted image which is actually the original input image. Fig 8
is the final image that is the decrypted image.
B. VERILOG
Fig 9 is the data hiding is used for securing the transmission
of secret message in the carrier without revealing the actual
message. There will some insecure line s when we embed some
data in secret message. Fig 10 is the date extract is used to find
blocks for embedding process.
TABLE. I
EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS OF PROPOSED SYSTEM
PSNR PSNR (one neighbor PSNR (with applied
method) formula)
Input image 34.3692 34.413
Carrier image 53.7618 53.7558
Fig. 6. Input image and Carrier image

Fig. 7. Resized image and Encrypted image
Fig. 8. Decrypted image
Fig. 9. Data hiding
Fig. 10. Data Extract
View publication stats
VI. CONCLUSION
The image steganography is used to hide the details or
information such that the unauthorized cannot able to retrieve
the information without the permission of the users and it is
also illegal to capture the information. The propose system
that is the methods to hide and recover the information is one
of the easiest technique to nurture the encrypted message from
the carrier image. It is less pr one to distortion due to image
intensities of primary colors f or our naked eye. The proposed
method is integrated within t he hidden information to make
significance in distortion of image. PSNR is improved as per
the formula so that quality is measured according to its
process. Optimum pixel adjustment procedure is also
introduced to adjust pixel value so that the secret key is well
arranged. There is a reduction of distortion in LSB method and
also improves the quality without disturbing the hidden data.
The LSB method is maintained for payload capacity and
temper resistance whereas the pixel value adjustment is
responsible for higher security. The information in the image
is used for highly securing international documents and files
with the use of secret key the cover image can be accessed
properly.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
We would like to thank to Dr. Jyothi S. N., Principal,
Amrita School of Engineering for providing necessary
facilities and a ideal environment to carry out this work. We
avail this opportunity to express our sincere gratitude to our
teachers for their guidance, advance and encouragement tat
every step of this endeavor.
REFERENCES
[1] P. Malathi , T. Gireeshkumar., “Relating the Embedding Efficiency of
LSB Steganography Techniques in Spatial and Transform Domains",
6th International Conference on Advances in Computing & comm,
ICACC 2016, 6-8 September 2016, Cochin, India.
[2] Amritha, P.P. , Sethumadhavan, M., Krishnan, R.," On the removal of
steganographic content from images", Proceedings TIFAC CORE in
Cyber Security Volume 66, Issue 6, November 2016, Pages 574-581.
[3] R.Gayathri and V.Nagarajan, “Secure data hiding using steganographic
technique with Visual cryptography and watermarking scheme”, IEEE
International Conference on Communication and Signal Processing-
(ICCSP15), April 2015, pp. 118 - 123.
[4] S. Anjana and Amritha, P. P., “A Novel Method for Secure Image
Steganography”, in Artificial In elligence and Evolutionary Algorithms
in Engineering Systems: Proceedings of ICAEES 2014, Volume 1, P. L.
Suresh, Dash, S. Subhransu, and Panigrahi, K. Bijaya New Delhi:
Springer India. “https://www.amrita.edu/nirf/engineering/coimbatore
“2015.
[5] M. Kutte and Hartung., "Information hiding-a survey”, Proceedings of
The IEEE: Special Issue on Identification and Protection of
Multimedia Content, Volume: 87 Issue: 7, pp. I062-I078, July. 1999.
0677