Optimised Hybrid Approach for Secure and Imperceptible Image Data Hiding Systems

Abstract

Digital communication has witnessed remarkable growth since the advent of the internet. However, security concerns can be attributed to the inherent openness of the existing internet environment. Steganography is an effective technique for hiding sensitive information within a digital medium. The proposed research presents an enhanced spatial domain image steganography approach developed using the least significant bit (LSB) technique. This approach is further enhanced using two meta-heuristics: the genetic algorithm (GA) and Tabu search (TS). However, no existing approach has simultaneously employed GA and TS optimisers. Therefore, the proposed approach is a unique contribution to the field of image steganography. In this approach, GA is utilised as an optimiser to facilitate the selection of the most suitable image pixels for data embedding. The optimisation process helps minimise image distortion. The method is further improved using the TS optimiser, thus achieving the least image distortion. Results indicate the effectiveness of the proposed approach in image steganography. Compared with the conventional LSB steganography technique, the proposed approach achieves a 55.120% improvement in peak signal-to-noise ratio and a 0.26% improvement in mean squared error. Thus, the proposed approach represents a remarkable contribution to digital communication, demonstrating its effectiveness in protecting confidential information. Overall, the proposed approach can be further enhanced and explored for applications in other fields.