A Lossless Data Hiding Technique based on AES-DWT

TL;DR

This paper introduces a lossless data hiding method combining AES encryption and Haar-DWT steganography on grayscale images, achieving secure, error-free hidden image reconstruction with high PSNR.

Contribution

It presents a novel lossless data hiding approach integrating cryptography and wavelet-based steganography with fixed-size images and error-free recovery.

Findings

The technique achieves high PSNR across different thresholds.

It provides double security through encryption and steganography.

The method ensures error-free reconstruction of hidden images.

Abstract

In this paper we propose a new data hiding technique. The new technique uses steganography and cryptography on images with a size of 256x256 pixels and an 8-bit grayscale format. There are design restrictions such as a fixed-size cover image, and reconstruction without error of the hidden image. The steganography technique uses a Haar-DWT (Discrete Wavelet Transform) with hard thresholding and LSB (Less Significant Bit) technique on the cover image. The algorithms used for compressing and ciphering the secret image are lossless JPG and AES, respectively. The proposed technique is used to generate a stego image which provides a double type of security that is robust against attacks. Results are reported for different thresholds levels in terms of PSNR.