Enhancing the steganographic resistance of hidden information to active attacks

Abstract

With the rapid development of modern information technologies and systems, the number and complexity of threats aimed at breaching the security of confidential information transmitted secretly in multimedia files is increasing. At the same time, active attacks aimed at steganographic information protection systems are of great importance, as they differ from passive attacks in that the attacker not only tries to detect hidden information but can also modify the image to remove or distort it. Given the importance of this issue, the paper proposes to increase the resistance of hidden information in images to color gamutchanging attacks. To achieve this goal, the hiding algorithm has been improved based on the use of matrix filters to find the most suitable image areas and hide bits of information in them by correlating the average brightness of segments in blocks. The proposed algorithm includes many variable parameters, which makes it possible to adapt it to a wide range of images. In addition, flexible parameter settings enable improved information embedding and extraction accuracy. To validate the effectiveness of the enhanced algorithm, color-change attacks were conducted on an image containing embedded hidden information. Various steganalysis methods were also applied, including visual steganalysis, which reveals the least significant bit of the image; RS steganalysis, which estimates the approximate size of the hidden data; and a method analyzing the distribution of image elements on a plane to detect patterns, structures, or anomalies within the image. The obtained results demonstrate the robustness of the proposed method of information hiding to the selected steganalysis algorithms and to color gamut-changing attacks.