A Secured Method of Reversible Data Hiding

Abstract

In this paper, a new method of secured reversible data hiding that depends on modified pixel expansion has been proposed. The coloured image is divided into three layers (red, green, and blue); then, the blue-layer will be selected as a cover-media for embedding. Next, the difference between two adjacent pixels of the cover-image is calculated, and the result is assigned to the second pixel. After that, a secret logo of size (256x512) will be embedded into each 1st MSB of the second pixel of the cover-image to obtain a stego-image (blue layer only). Finally, the other layers of stego-image; red and green will be encrypted using the Henon chaotic system, and they will be merged to generate the final encrypted image. The receiver has to use the extraction and recovery process to decrypt the ciphered image to obtain the original layers of the image (red, green, and blue). Also, the secret logo will be extracted from 1st MSB of the stego-image then the original cover-image will be ideally recovered via using the recovery process. The red, green, and recovered blue layer has to be combined to obtain the final original image. According to the results, the proposed approach has achieved the best embedding capacity equal to (0.5 bpp) and optimal image quality for the recovered image. The confidentiality of the stego-image and secret logo has been improved via applying Henon chaotic system. Besides, the proposed method is straightforward for implementation, and it requires a little execution time.