IT Security Stack Exchange
IT Security Stack Exchange

Questions tagged [steganography]

Steganography is the art of hiding data within other data. Ann sends a message to Bob. With encryption Eve could see the message but not read it. With steganography Eve would not see the message.

Steganography ( steganos - covered; graphie - writing ) is the art of hiding a message within another message. An example would be hiding a text file in the data of a graphics file.

Compare this to cryptography. Imagine Ann wants to send a message to Bob. Ann decides to encrypt the image and send it. This means that if Eve intercepts the message she'll know it exists, but she will not be able to decrypt it. With steganography Eve will not know the message exists, but if she did she would be able to read it.

Steganography has several failure points.

  • Poor choice of cover data
  • Poor preparation of hidden data
  • Poor choice of method of hiding

Some steganographic software available produces 'hidden' data that is trivially easy to detect; there are steganography detection softwares available.

127 questions
19
votes
7 answers

Steganography to hide text within text

Are there any steganography algorithms which are capable of hiding a (optionally encrypted) text message within another innocuous text message? The scenario I envisage is that I would like to carry on an email conversation, which to a man in the…
mulllhausen
  • 638
  • 2
  • 7
  • 14
11
votes
2 answers

Does this image contain secret data?

I am analysing big, cloud-based application. During analysis I found that one of the biggest files (>3 MB) used in this app is a very small (16x16) icon.png file. Further analysis revealed that the file contains over 60000 lines of metadata,…
Kao
  • 213
  • 2
  • 6
11
votes
6 answers

How can I detect that steganography has been used?

I have seen some of the algorithms which are used to detect if a file is a stego-file or not, but all those algorithms check for specific patterns and are not universal. Maybe there are universal detection systems, but I have not seen them…
ritesh
  • 213
  • 1
  • 2
  • 7
11
votes
9 answers

Can morse code be called steganography?

Steganography means "hidden writing", where we send messages in hidden ways. Does this mean that something only experts can understand is called steganography?
Israr Ahmad
  • 163
  • 1
  • 6
6
votes
1 answer

What to do with output files from binwalk?

I am testing my steganography skills on www.root-me.org. I downloaded a challenge. Here is the challenge image file. I used binwalk and it showed me the following: root@kst-Inspiron-5458:/home/kst/Desktop# binwalk ch1.png DECIMAL HEXADECIMAL…
kst
  • 131
  • 1
  • 2
  • 4
3
votes
1 answer

How common is steganography in real world applications?

Steganography, the art of hiding information in "plain sight", is often taught in universities, because it seems immediately graspable to students. An image format where only 7 bits per byte are used can be (ab)used to hide 3 bits of information per…
user163495
3
votes
2 answers

Openstego LSB Plugin

I ran the openstego command line below and got the error "No plugin found with name: lsb". I googled for this error and it said "abstract class should be added." I am not good at java but I want to know how to solve it. root@~/openstego-0.6.1/lib#…
kst
  • 131
  • 1
  • 2
  • 4
3
votes
1 answer

Protect hidden message in image from manipulations

I understand that there are techniques that allows me to hide information in an image. In particular, I am interested in what ways I can save a relatively short string in an image, say 30-40 characters. Suppose I have a flow that looks like the…
Anton
  • 33
  • 2
3
votes
2 answers

steganography - digital application?

Recently I participated in a CTF game which held a number of steganography challenges. This got me really interested in steganography. From what I understand steganography is most commonly used with images, data hidden in images. this is because…
TheHidden
  • 4,355
  • 3
  • 24
  • 40
2
votes
1 answer

Efficiency of Steganography with Linear Codes

I have read some papers about steganography using perfect linear codes. The aim is sending more hidden message bits with changing less cover message bits. For example using the parity check matrix of [7,4,3] Hamming code, we can embed 3 bits of…
faith
  • 143
  • 4
1
vote
2 answers

How to look for steganography in a picture

I need to scan this picture for steganography as the meta-data suggest there is some concealment. I'm new to this process and don't know which free tool is the most comprehensive. EDIT: 1. as I suspected stackexchange image upload does a exif…
Manumit
  • 599
  • 1
  • 5
  • 20
1
vote
2 answers

How to grade / judge / evaluate a steganography approach?

When it comes to evaluating a text steganographic approach, I think we have to consider these things: How unlikely it is for someone to guess that there is a hidden message in the message being sent? How large a hidden text can be stored in a cover…
learner
  • 123
  • 4
1
vote
1 answer

F4 Algorithm for Steganography

Jsteg algorithm is vulnerable to statistical attacks because it influences the DCT histogram of an image perceptibly since it equalizes the number of paris of coefficients. F3 algorithm, instead of replacing LSB's, decrements the coefficient's…
faith
  • 143
  • 4
1
vote
1 answer

Secrecy of the method in steganography

Is it considered a bad practice to use a secret method to encode data in steganography? We all know that it is a bad practice in cryptography, for at least two reasons: A public method can be checked by experts so we know it's safe A secret method…
reed
  • 15,814
  • 6
  • 47
  • 70
1
vote
0 answers

Steganography and hiding messages

Is it possible to hide strings of text in one picture without coupling the strings in a file? I have only been able to find tools that allow for one.
NowsyMe
  • 167
  • 1
  • 1
  • 8
1
2