A Study of Secure Communication Using Images and Visual Cryptography

Data security will be fundamental in every digital communication as it makes internet communication valuable and meaningful. Data can be text, voice, symbols, images, videos etc. An image is an array of pixels arranged in order (based on strict rules). So, the advanced encryption standards focus on using images to secure communication. So, there are different techniques to communicate using images, which they hide information in or encrypt using traditional cryptographic algorithms. Traditional cryptographic models consider the images as an array of pixels (pixels again a set of binary values) and are encrypted using selected algorithms. Steganography, watermarking, or visual cryptography is a tool for securing data communication using images or visual objects. Some combined models use these techniques, as well as some traditional cryptographic algorithms, to strengthen the security and privacy of information. Even though communication using images causes headaches compared to text or any other data mode, the added advantage of privacy and security will attract it. In the article, we discuss and compare the different communication models that use images, highlighting the pros and cons of each method.