Image steganography using genetic algorithm for cover image selection and embedding

Data interchange through internet becomes an eminent technique and hence data security has become a big challenge in the field of communication with the increased use of internet. Demand for data authentication and effective means to control data integrity has been steadily increasing. Such a demand is due to the ease with which digital data can be tampered. Thus, cryptography and watermarking can be replaced with steganography for secure data communication and data privacy. In this paper, the carrier image is selected such that the payload/secret image and least significant bits of carrier image are matched with larger degree of compatibility and the hiding process introduces negligible changes in the resulted stego image based on genetic algorithm. In the proposed method we have achieved 30 to 40% improvements in the performance when compared to different existing methods. Selection of a suitable cover image and hiding the secret data to enhance the imperceptibility is a very challenging task. Genetic algorithm is used to ease the work of exploring an impossible task of selection from the trillions and millions of combinations.