A Combination of Inverted LSB, RSA, and Arnold Transformation to get Secure and Imperceptible Image Steganography

Abstract

Securing images can be achieved using cryptography and steganography. Combining both techniques can improve the security of images. Usually, Arnold’s transformation (ACM) is used to encrypt an image by randomizing the image pixels. However, applying only a transformation algorithm is not secure enough to protect the image. In this study, ACM was combined with RSA, another encryption technique, which has an exponential process that uses large numbers. This can confuse attackers when they try to decrypt the cipher images. Furthermore, this paper also proposes combing ACM with RSA and subsequently embedding the result in a cover image with inverted two-bit LSB steganography, which replaces two bits in the bit plane of the cover image with message bits. This modified steganography technique can provide twice the capacity of the previous method. The experimental result was evaluated using PSNR and entropy as the parameters to obtain the quality of the stego images and the cipher images. The proposed method produced a highest PSNR of 57.8493 dB and entropy equal to 7.9948.