On the realization of a spatial domain data hiding technique based on intermediate significant bit plane embedding (ISBPE) and Post Embedding Pixel Adjustment (PEPA)

Information security assumes a paramount importance in contemporary digital age. Data hiding in images has flourished in recent years as an important field for information security. An Intermediate Significant Bit (ISB) plane based data hiding technique is investigated and presented in this paper. The data to be embedded in a cover image has been scrambled, and embedding has been carried out at the address locations pointed to by Pseudorandom Address Vector (PAV). The perceptual degradation of the image caused due to embedding in ISB planes has been taken care of by using Post Embedding Pixel Adjustment (PEA) technique. The pseudorandom embedding of encrypted data provides a two tier of security to the embedded secret data. The comparison of the proposed technique with an existing data hiding scheme shows that proposed technique is capable of providing better quality stego-images even if the payload is slightly more. This is validated by an improvement in PSNR by about 3dB. Further, an important advantage offered by this technique is that the embedded data is not vulnerable to LSB removal/replacement attack as data is embedded in ISB planes.