Hybrid Encryption and Steganography for Secure Image Data Hiding
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.21928/uhdjst.v9n2y2025.pp287-296Keywords:
Robust Security Model, ChaCha20 Encryption, Discrete Wavelet Transform, Least Significant Bit Steganography, Image-Based Data HidingAbstract
Secure communication is becoming increasingly important in modern digital societies, where sensitive information is frequently exchanged over open networks. Traditional steganographic and cryptographic methods alone often fail to achieve a balance between imperceptibility, capacity, and robustness. To address these limitations, experimental results show a Peak Signal-to-Noise Ratio (PSNR) of 68 dB, indicating excellent visual quality, and a data-hiding capacity of 15 bits per pixel. It provides higher data payloads than conventional steganographic methods (typically 1–2 bpp) while still maintaining a very high PSNR of 68 dB. Furthermore, we highlight the improvements over existing works in terms of imperceptibility, robustness, and security. This revision makes the abstract more comprehensive and self-contained. Comparative analysis further highlights the superiority of this method over conventional techniques, offering an optimal balance between security, imperceptibility, and embedding capacity.
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Copyright (c) 2025 Hawkar Kamaran Hama, Aram M. Ahmed, Bryar A. Hassan, Abdulhady Abas Abdullah
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