ABSTRACT
Data security has become increasingly vital due to the exponential growth of data generated over the Internet, necessitating effective methods for safeguarding information. Steganography is a specialized technique for embedding secret information within various media, such as images, audio, video, or text. This method enables secure communication where only the sender and intended recipient are aware of the concealed data. The process begins with identifying redundant components in a cover medium, allowing for the modification of select bits without compromising quality. In this work, an image serves as the cover file, and a symmetric key ensures the security of the hidden message. Our proposed methodology demonstrates improved performance, with higher Peak Signal-to-Noise Ratio (PSNR) and Signal-to-Noise Ratio (SNR) values compared to existing wavelet transform techniques, as shown in our experimental results. The implementation is carried out using MATLAB.

Keywords: Cover file, Information Hiding, Image Steganography, Embedded File, LSB

PROBLEM STATEMENT:

With the rapid increase in data transmission over the internet, ensuring data security and confidentiality has become critical. Sensitive information, when transmitted openly, is vulnerable to unauthorized access, interception, and misuse. Traditional cryptographic methods protect data by making it unreadable to unauthorized users, but they do not conceal the existence of the data itself. This limitation creates a need for a steganographic approach that not only encrypts but also hides data within a common medium, making it undetectable to unintended recipients. The challenge lies in designing a method to securely embed both text and audio data within a single image file, with minimal impact on the visual quality of the image and the integrity of the hidden data.

OBJECTIVE:
The objective of this work is to develop a dual-layer steganographic method that securely embeds both text and audio within a cover image using the Least Significant Bit (LSB) method, thus enhancing the security and confidentiality of transmitted data. This approach aims to achieve the following:
1. High Quality and Low Distortion: Embed data within an image file while preserving the image’s quality, achieving high PSNR (Peak Signal-to-Noise Ratio) and SNR (Signal-to-Noise Ratio) values for the Stego-image and extracted data.
2. Secure Transmission: Use a Stego-key to encode the text and audio data, ensuring that only authorized recipients with the key can access the hidden information.
3. Efficient Data Extraction: Enable accurate and reliable extraction of both the hidden text and audio files from the Stego-image without significant data loss.
4. Comparison and Validation: Evaluate the effectiveness of the proposed method against existing techniques, such as the wavelet transform method, to establish improvements in security and data integrity.