Enhanced secure image steganography using double encryption algorithms

Increased usage of privacy breaches with competition intercepting communications and electronic vandalism makes cryptographic algorithms strong and secure. Cryptographic techniques together with Steganography algorithms visualize file as well as the data size that can be transferred in a balanced manner. In this paper the message is first encrypted using Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) symmetric encryption technique and further encrypted by using public cryptography method, Elliptic Curve Cryptography (ECC). This double encrypted data is then compressed with Lempel Ziv Welch (LZW) technique to reduce the residing capacity of secret data. Using knight tour algorithm the robustness of the LSB insertion approach is improved. In the proposed Hybrid encryption, which is also known as the AES-ECC approach, the symmetric cryptosystem is used to conceal data and public key cryptosystem is applied to encapsulate the key of asymmetric cryptosystem. Selecting the asymmetric and symmetric algorithms for data security make visual and statistical attacks more resistive. The proposed technique improves the security of the data as well as robustness.