Survey on Image Steganography Techniques

Steganography is the science that addresses hiding secret data within cover image or audio for the purpose of protection. Steganography acts on a higher layer of protection when compared to encryption because it hides the communication itself, between the sender and receiver, rather than encrypting exchanged messages. Recently, steganography has been received significant amount of attention from research committee due to its valuable applications especially in medical field to preserve integrity of medical data. This work classifies the steganography systems proposed previously into two main categories, which are spatial and frequency domains. Reviewed works are evaluated according to four criteria, which are payload, retrieved bit error rate, complicity, and resistance against geometric and non-geometric attacks. Most common metrics that are used in steganography field are presented along with their mechanism of evaluation. Finally, challenges and new trends in steganography are provided.