Implementation of a Crypto-Steganographic System Based on the AES-CBC Algorithm

Abstract

Safeguarding information has been one of the oldest needs of mankind, as well as protecting privacy from malicious attacks, thus steganography arises as a response to that need. Common steganography techniques, such as LSB, remove the natural entropy of the least significant bits in an image, which can raise suspicions about the existence of hidden information. The objective of this paper is to embed an AES-CBC encrypted secret message in an image using the LSB method to eliminate any kind of patterns that may be generated when applying steganographic techniques, in addition to providing double security to the information using a standard block cipher. A high-level software tool was developed that works with image processing and the use of cryptographic libraries that have the standard of block cipher such as AES-CBC. After this implementation, a series of tests were carried out with different sizes of images and information to be ciphered, which measured the time it takes to perform the entire process of mixing and encryption of information, thus it was possible to give a double security scheme to the information in terms of using LSB without generating patterns easily detectable by any tool and making a basic and secure encryption scheme of information, all simultaneously.