TARU PUBLICATIONS
Journal of Information and Optimization Sciences cover
Open Access ·Peer-reviewed·ISSN (Online): 2169-0103·ISSN (Print): 0252-2667
Powered by:DOICrossrefiThenticate

The Journal of Information and Optimization Sciences (JIOS) is a world leading journal publishing high quality, rigorously peer-reviewed original research in all mathematically-oriented theoretical and applied topics in information sciences, optimization sciences and related areas since 1980. Subjects include but are not limited to: • Information Sciences • Optimization Sciences • Control Theory • Operational Research • Decision Sciences • Information Theory • Information Technology • Computer Networks and Communications • Mathematical Programming • Modelling and Simulation • Database Management • Applications to Engineering Sciences • Applications to Technology

Issues up to 2022 co-published with and available at:Taylor & Francis
submissions@tarupublications.com
Open Access Research Article

Covert communication using reversible and lossless image steganography with high embedding capacity

* , , ,

* Corresponding author · click or hover a name for details

pp. 741–751Vol. 47Issue 2February 2026DOI: 10.47974/JIOS-2054XML
Received:
12 Feb 2025
Published Online:
02 Feb 2026
Article type:
Research Article
Language:
EN
Article no.:
JIOS-2054
Pages:
741–751

Abstract

In digital world, security is one of the important challenging issues. Data hiding is one of the ways out. Covert communication is possible with data hiding. Steganography technique is one of the useful data hiding method, the secret is hided with the help of cover so that the third party cannot identify. Data may be in the form of text, image, audio/video. In this paper, a novel image steganography algorithm based on modulus and polynomial theory is proposed for data hiding. In proposed method image is taken as data, both secret and cover images are reconstructed at the receiver side by the authorized person without any damage hence this method satisfies the reversibility property. Proposed method gives high embedding capacity, good quality with a PSNR of 64.45dB compared with existing techniques.

Keywords

Subject Classifications

94A6011T7111C08

References

[1] T. Wang, H. Cheng, X. Liu, Y. Xu, F. Chen, M. Wang, and J. Chen, “Lossless image steganography: Regard steganography as super-resolution,” Information Processing & Management, vol. 61, no. 4 (Jul. 2024).[2] S. S. Midha and B. Ramola, “Cryptography in network security,” in 2022 International Conference on Cyber Resilience (ICCR), Dubai, UAE, pp. 1–5 (2022).[3] M. A. Tahiri, H. Karmouni, M. Sayyouri, H. Qjidaa, M. Ahmad, M. Hammad, P. Pławiak, O. Alfarraj, and A. A. Abd El-Latif, “An improved reversible watermarking scheme using embedding optimization and quaternion moments,” Scientific Reports, vol. 14, art. no. 18485 (2024), doi: 10.1038/s41598-024--69511-3”.[4] B. L. Sirisha, S. F. Ahamed, and V. B. K. L. Aruna, “Patient data hiding and transmitting during COVID-19 for telemedicine application using image steganography,” Current Medical Imaging, vol. 20, pp. 1–8 (2024).[5] A. Shamir, “How to share a secret,” Communications of the ACM, vol. 22, no. 11, pp. 612–613 (1997).[6] W. H. Tsai and C. C. Lin, “Secret image sharing with steganography and authentication,” Journal of Systems and Software, vol. 73, no. 3, pp. 405–414 (2004).[7] Y. S. Wu, C. C. Thien, and J. C. Lin, “Sharing and hiding secret images with size constraint,” Pattern Recognition, vol. 37, no. 7, pp. 1377–1385 (2004).[8] C. C. Chang, Y. P. Hsieh, and C. H. Lin, “Sharing secret in stego images with authentication,” Pattern Recognition, vol. 41, no. 10, pp. 3130–3137 (2008).[9] R. Zhao, J. J. Zhao, F. Dai, and F. Q. Zhao, “A new image secret sharing scheme to identify cheaters,” Computer Standards & Interfaces, vol. 31, no. 1, pp. 252–257 (2009).[10] P. Y. Lin, J. S. Lee, and C. C. Chang, “Distortion-free secret image sharing mechanism using modulus operator,” Pattern Recognition, vol. 42, no. 5, pp. 886–895 (2009).[11] C. N. Yang, T. S. Chen, K. H. Yu, and C. C. Wang, “Improvements of image sharing with steganography and authentication,” Journal of Systems and Software, vol. 80, no. 7, pp. 1070–1076 (2007).[12] P. Y. Pei and C. S. Chan, “Invertible secret image sharing with steganography,” Pattern Recognition Letters, vol. 31, pp. 1887–1893 (2010).[13] B. Lakshmi Sirisha and B. Chandra Mohan, “Review on spatial domain image steganography techniques,” Journal of Discrete Mathematical Sciences and Cryptography, vol. 24, no. 6, pp. 1873–1883 (2021).[14] H. Mohsin, A. A. Zaidan, B. B. Zaidan, K. I. Mohammed, O. S. Albahri, A. S. Albahri, and M. A. Alsalem, “PSO–Blockchain-based image steganography: towards a new method to secure updating and sharing COVID-19 data in decentralized hospitals intelligence architecture,” Springer, pp. 14137–14161 (Dec. 2020).[15] Y. Ren, J. Qin, X. Xiang, and Y. Tan, “Reversible data hiding in encrypted images based on secret sharing and hierarchical embedding,” Computers and Electrical Engineering, vol. 119, Part B (2024).[16] S. N. V. J. Devi Kosuru, A. Pradhan, K. Abdul Basith, R. Sonar, and G. Swain, “Digital image steganography with error correction on extracted data,” IEEE Access, vol. 11 (2023).[17] S. Rustad, D. R. I. M. Setiadi, P. N. Andono, A. Syukur, and Purwanto, “Optimization of cross diagonal pixel value differencing and modulus function steganography using edge area block patterns,” Cybernetics and Information Technologies, vol. 22, no. 2 (2022).[18] X. Bi, X. Yang, C. Wang, and J. Liu, “High capacity image steganography algorithm based on image style transfer,” Security and Communication Networks, vol. 1, pp. 1–14 (2021).[19] Y. P. Lee and J. C. Lee, “High-payload image hiding with quality recovery using tri-way pixel value differencing,” Information Sciences, pp. 214–225 (2012).[20] X. Duan, D. Guo, N. Liu, and B. Li, “A new high capacity image steganography method combined with image elliptic curve cryptography and deep neural network,” IEEE Access, vol. 8 (Feb. 2020).[21] B. L. Sirisha, “Image steganography based on SVD and DWT techniques,” Journal of Discrete Mathematical Sciences and Cryptography, vol. 23, no. 3, pp. 779–786 (Feb. 2020).[22] A. K. Sahu and M. Sahu, “Digital image steganography and steganalysis: A journey of the past three decades,” Open Computer Science, vol. 10, pp. 296–342 (2020).[23] B. L. Sirisha, S. Srinivas Kumar, and B. Chandra Mohan, “Steganography based image sharing with reversibility,” Journal of Discrete Mathematical Sciences and Cryptography, vol. 19, no. 1, pp. 67–80 (2016).[24] B. L. Sirisha, S. Srinivas Kumar, and B. Chandra Mohan, “Identification of cheaters in elections using steganography,” Journal of Information and Optimization Sciences, vol. 37, no. 2, pp. 271–278 (2016).[25] W. Wei and Y. Wen, “A novel image steganography using wavelet contrast and modulus operation,” Lecture Notes in Computer Science, pp. 418–425 (2016).[26] B. L. Sirisha, S. Srinivas Kumar, and B. Chandra Mohan, “Steganography based information security with high embedding capacity,” in National Conference on Recent Advances in Electronics & Computer Engineering (RAECE), IIT Roorkee (2015).[27] N. Ayub and A. Selwal, “An improved image steganography technique using edge based data hiding in DCT domain,” Journal of Interdisciplinary Mathematics, vol. 23, no. 2, pp. 357–366 (2020).[28] V. K. Sharma, B. P. Soni, N. Janu, S. Aziz, and D. Shekhawat, “Review on image steganography using different LSB methods,” Journal of Discrete Mathematical Sciences and Cryptography, vol. 27, no. 4, pp. 1319–1329 (2024).
Views: 82Downloads: 9Citations: 0