A secure method for color image steganography using gray-level modification and multi-level encryption

Security of information during transmission is a major issue in this modern era. All of the communicating bodies want confidentiality, integrity, and authenticity of their secret information. Researchers have presented various schemes to cope with these Internet security issues. In this context, both steganography and cryptography can be used effectively. However, major limitation in the existing steganographic methods is the low-quality output stego images, which consequently results in the lack of security. To cope with these issues, we present an efficient method for RGB images based on gray level modification (GLM) and multi-level encryption (MLE). The secret key and secret data is encrypted using MLE algorithm before mapping it to the grey-levels of the cover image. Then, a transposition function is applied on cover image prior to data hiding. The usage of transpose, secret key, MLE, and GLM adds four different levels of security to the proposed algorithm, making it very difficult for a malicious user to extract the original secret information. The proposed method is evaluated both quantitatively and qualitatively. The experimental results, compared with several state-of-the-art algorithms, show that the proposed algorithm not only enhances the quality of stego images but also provides multiple levels of security, which can significantly misguide image steganalysis and makes the attack on this algorithm more challenging.