A 3-Level Secure Histogram Based Image Steganography Technique

Steganography is an art that involves communication of secret data in an appropriate carrier, eg. images, audio, video, etc. with a goal to hide the very existence of embedded data so as not to arouse an eavesdropper’s suspicion. In this paper, a steganographic technique with high level of security and having a data hiding capacity close to 20% of cover image data has been developed. An adaptive and matched bit replacement method is used based on the sensitivity of Human Visual System (HVS) at different intensities. The proposed algorithm ensures that the generated stego image has a PSNR greater than 38.5 and is also resistant to visual attack. A three level security is infused into the algorithm which makes data retrieval from the stego image possible only in case of having all the right keys.