Huffman coding-based data reduction and quadristego logic for secure image steganography
Ensuring secure data transmission is critical for maintaining confidentiality and has become increasingly important. Steganography, which embeds secret information within digital images, has been widely explored to safeguard sensitive data from unauthorized access over public networks. However, exis...
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Elsevier
2025-05-01
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| Series: | Engineering Science and Technology, an International Journal |
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| Online Access: | http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2215098625000886 |
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| author | Irsyad Fikriansyah Ramadhan Ntivuguruzwa Jean De La Croix Tohari Ahmad Andre Uzamurengera |
| author_facet | Irsyad Fikriansyah Ramadhan Ntivuguruzwa Jean De La Croix Tohari Ahmad Andre Uzamurengera |
| author_sort | Irsyad Fikriansyah Ramadhan |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Ensuring secure data transmission is critical for maintaining confidentiality and has become increasingly important. Steganography, which embeds secret information within digital images, has been widely explored to safeguard sensitive data from unauthorized access over public networks. However, existing steganographic algorithms often face a significant trade-off between payload capacity, image quality, and security. Embedding large amounts of data can cause noticeable distortion in image quality, undermining the technique’s effectiveness. Furthermore, current methods lack adaptability to diverse cover media and struggle to maintain reversibility and high visual quality under increased embedding capacities. To address these challenges, this study proposes a novel steganographic algorithm integrating two key innovations: (1) Enhancement of stego image quality via stego image’s segmentation into four images, reducing concentration-induced distortions, and (2) optimization of data embedding through Huffman coding through a lossless compression minimizing the embedding-induced distortions while maximizing payload capacity. The experimental results show that the proposed method achieves high visual fidelity, with PSNR values ranging from 75.793 dB to 44.997 dB without encryption and from 51.159 dB to 44.316 dB with encryption for payloads between 10 KB and 100 KB. These values exceed the 30 dB threshold for acceptable image steganography, ensuring minimal perceptual distortion. Additionally, the SSIM remains consistently above 0.98, indicating strong structural preservation of stego images. Comparative analysis with existing methods confirms that the proposed approach outperforms in embedding capacity, structural similarity index measure (SSIM), and peak signal-to-noise ratio (PSNR), reflecting the stego images’ quality. |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj-art-3ea39b217fb04ec4b322fb360b1b0444 |
| institution | DOAJ |
| issn | 2215-0986 |
| language | English |
| publishDate | 2025-05-01 |
| publisher | Elsevier |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Engineering Science and Technology, an International Journal |
| spelling | doaj-art-3ea39b217fb04ec4b322fb360b1b04442025-08-20T03:09:04ZengElsevierEngineering Science and Technology, an International Journal2215-09862025-05-016510203310.1016/j.jestch.2025.102033Huffman coding-based data reduction and quadristego logic for secure image steganographyIrsyad Fikriansyah Ramadhan0Ntivuguruzwa Jean De La Croix1Tohari Ahmad2Andre Uzamurengera3Department of Informatics, Institut Teknologi Sepuluh Nopember, Surabaya 60111, IndonesiaDepartment of Informatics, Institut Teknologi Sepuluh Nopember, Surabaya 60111, Indonesia; African Center of Excellence in Internet of Things, College of Science and Technology, University of Rwanda, Kigali 3900, RwandaDepartment of Informatics, Institut Teknologi Sepuluh Nopember, Surabaya 60111, Indonesia; Corresponding author.National Bank of Rwanda, Kigali 531, RwandaEnsuring secure data transmission is critical for maintaining confidentiality and has become increasingly important. Steganography, which embeds secret information within digital images, has been widely explored to safeguard sensitive data from unauthorized access over public networks. However, existing steganographic algorithms often face a significant trade-off between payload capacity, image quality, and security. Embedding large amounts of data can cause noticeable distortion in image quality, undermining the technique’s effectiveness. Furthermore, current methods lack adaptability to diverse cover media and struggle to maintain reversibility and high visual quality under increased embedding capacities. To address these challenges, this study proposes a novel steganographic algorithm integrating two key innovations: (1) Enhancement of stego image quality via stego image’s segmentation into four images, reducing concentration-induced distortions, and (2) optimization of data embedding through Huffman coding through a lossless compression minimizing the embedding-induced distortions while maximizing payload capacity. The experimental results show that the proposed method achieves high visual fidelity, with PSNR values ranging from 75.793 dB to 44.997 dB without encryption and from 51.159 dB to 44.316 dB with encryption for payloads between 10 KB and 100 KB. These values exceed the 30 dB threshold for acceptable image steganography, ensuring minimal perceptual distortion. Additionally, the SSIM remains consistently above 0.98, indicating strong structural preservation of stego images. Comparative analysis with existing methods confirms that the proposed approach outperforms in embedding capacity, structural similarity index measure (SSIM), and peak signal-to-noise ratio (PSNR), reflecting the stego images’ quality.http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2215098625000886Reversible Data Hiding (RDH)Image steganographyFour stego imagesHuffman codingInformation security |
| spellingShingle | Irsyad Fikriansyah Ramadhan Ntivuguruzwa Jean De La Croix Tohari Ahmad Andre Uzamurengera Huffman coding-based data reduction and quadristego logic for secure image steganography Engineering Science and Technology, an International Journal Reversible Data Hiding (RDH) Image steganography Four stego images Huffman coding Information security |
| title | Huffman coding-based data reduction and quadristego logic for secure image steganography |
| title_full | Huffman coding-based data reduction and quadristego logic for secure image steganography |
| title_fullStr | Huffman coding-based data reduction and quadristego logic for secure image steganography |
| title_full_unstemmed | Huffman coding-based data reduction and quadristego logic for secure image steganography |
| title_short | Huffman coding-based data reduction and quadristego logic for secure image steganography |
| title_sort | huffman coding based data reduction and quadristego logic for secure image steganography |
| topic | Reversible Data Hiding (RDH) Image steganography Four stego images Huffman coding Information security |
| url | http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2215098625000886 |
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