Steganography Security: Principle and Practice

TL;DR

This paper explores theoretical principles of steganography security, defines security levels, and analyzes the relationship between security, algorithms, and attack resistance, emphasizing the importance of key secrecy.

Contribution

It introduces a formal classification of steganography security levels and provides a theoretical framework distinguishing it from watermarking security.

Findings

Defined four security levels for steganography

Established necessary conditions for secure steganography

Analyzed data hiding algorithms and their security implications

Abstract

This paper focuses on several theoretical issues and principles in steganography security, and defines four security levels by analyzing the corresponding algorithm instances. In the theoretical analysis, we discuss the differences between steganography security and watermarking security. The two necessary conditions for the steganography security are obtained. Under the current technology situation, we then analyze the indistinguishability of the cover and stego-cover, and consider that the steganography security should rely on the key secrecy with algorithms open. By specifying the role of key in steganography, the necessary conditions for a secure steganography algorithm in theory are formally presented. When analyzing the security instances, we have classified the steganalysis attacks according to their variable access to the steganography system, and then defined the four security levels. The higher level security one has, the higher level attacks one can resist. We have also presented algorithm instances based on current technical conditions, and analyzed their data hiding process, security level, and practice requirements.