An Image Steganography Algorithm against Histogram and Statistical Analysis

Steganography is the art of hiding the very presence of communication by embedding secret messages into innocuous looking cover images. The Least Significant Bit (LSB) steganography that replaces the least significant bits of the host medium is a widely used technique with low computational complexity and high insertion capacity. Although it has good perceptual transparency, it is vulnerable to steganalysis which is based on statistical analysis. Many other steganography algorithms have been developed such as spread spectrum embedding, Discrete Cosine Transforms (DCT) and Discrete Wavelet Transform (DWT). But in all these existing schemes the hidden secret message in a cover message can be easily detected from the histogram analysis and statistical analysis. Therefore developing new LSB steganography algorithms against histogram and statistical analysis is a critical issue. This paper proposes a modulo based image steganography algorithm for both colour as well as for black and white images. Histogram and statistical analysis performed on the stego image proved that the proposed method can effectively resist statistical steganalysis.