A Novel LSB Steganography Technique Using Image Segmentation

Steganography is a process to hide data inside a cover file mostly used in media files like image, video, and audio files. Least significant bit (LSB) steganography is a technique where the least significant bits of pixels are used for information hiding. The purpose of using only those bits is to minimize the visual impact of the hidden data on the image file. LSB technique of steganography is one of the most popular forms of steganography available today. As a result, various steganalysis techniques are developed for this steganography technique. One of them is the visual analysis of pixels through pixel modifications to expose hidden data in a visual manner. The proposed method achieves resistance to this attack using an image segmentation model and extracting the most texture-complex areas of an image and hiding information in these specific areas as pseudo-randomized least significant bit replacements. As the outcome of the study, an alternative approach to LSB steganography that results competitively with existing methods is provided.