Digital Audio Steganography using FLT and Low-bit Encoding for Secure Storage and Transmission of Confidential Information

Confidentiality of data remains vital for securing critical knowledge and secure communication of information. One possible method of secure communication is encryption where data is obscured in such a format that makes little sense. The other method is steganography where information is hidden within a cover medium so as to remain undiscoverable and hence secured. Data hiding techniques are as old as the civilization itself and research is still going on to develop improved steganographic methods that can securely hide confidential data within different cover media. Digital images being easily available and offering a high level of redundancy, are considered as popular cover media. However, in this age of high-speed Internet, audio is not only abundantly available but is also heavily shared between various peers. It is also part of the video files. Therefore, audio can be a good cover for hiding text, images, audio, or video data. In this paper, we have suggested a novel audio steganography model that securely hides a high volume of data. The method is proved to be robust against various statistical and cryptanalytic attacks.