A NOVEL HYBRID IMAGE STEGANOGRAPHY TECHNIQUE BASED ON LSB AND CRYPTOGRAPHIC SECURITY

Computer Science

The rapid growth of digital communication and cloud-based information exchange has significantly increased the demand for secure data transmission techniques. Although cryptography provides confidentiality by encrypting secret information, it cannot conceal the existence of communication, making encrypted data vulnerable to interception and cryptanalysis. Image steganography addresses this limitation by embedding secret information within digital images in a manner that is visually imperceptible. This paper proposes a novel hybrid image steganography technique that integrates the Least Significant Bit (LSB) embedding method with the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES-256) algorithm to provide dual-layer security. Initially, the secret message is encrypted using AES-256 encryption to ensure confidentiality. The encrypted ciphertext is subsequently embedded into the least significant bits of a cover image using the LSB substitution technique. The receiver extracts the encrypted data from the stego image and decrypts it using the same secret key to recover the original message. The proposed hybrid model provides improved resistance against unauthorized access, statistical steganalysis, and brute-force attacks while maintaining excellent image quality. Experimental evaluation is carried out using Peak Signal-to-Noise Ratio (PSNR), Mean Square Error (MSE), Structural Similarity Index Measure (SSIM), embedding capacity, and execution time. The proposed approach achieves PSNR values above 50 dB, low MSE, and SSIM values close to 1.0, indicating high imperceptibility and efficient secure communication. The proposed system is suitable for military communication, healthcare, cloud security, digital forensics, banking, and confidential multimedia communication.

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