Colour image steganography using XOR multi-bit embedding process

The paper presents a colour image steganography, in which patient diagnose data is appended along with diagnosis information. The confidential information in the form of audio signal convolved with diagnoses data by using multi-bit embedding process. Each represented bit of both ECG and audio samples are convolved with each other and the resultant samples are given to modulo division process to separate quotient and remainder value. The quotient data is then embedded within selective locations of colour image component. Eventually, the reminder value will act as a key to retrieve original information. The performance of proposed steganography process is validated by estimating various quantitative and statistical metrics, such as peak signal to noise ratio (PSNR), normalized cross correlation (NCC), structural similarity index (SSIM) and signal to noise ratio (SNR). With increase in payload size the result shows better robustness and imperceptibility between cover and stego image. The absorbed SNR value of the extracted signal is absorbed to be 23 dB with minimum signal degradation.