Forensic research of satellite images forgery: a comprehensive survey

Satellite imagery is a significant and attractive area in remote sensing applications, widely applied in monitoring, managing, and tracking natural disasters. Due to the proliferation of commercial satellites, there is an increasing availability of high-resolution satellite images. However, the ubiquity of image editing tools and the advancement of image processing technologies have made satellite image forgery relatively easy, allowing for the arbitrary addition, removal, or modification of target objects. In recent years, satellite image forgery has caused significant negative effects and potential threats to the nation, society, and individuals, drawing the attention of many scholars. Although forensics of satellite image tampering is an emerging research field that offers new insights into the field of information security, there has been a scarcity of comprehensive surveys in this area. This paper aims to fill this gap and investigates recent advances in satellite image forensics, focusing on tampering strategies and forensic methodologies. First, we discuss the concept of satellite images, the definition of satellite image forgery from global and local perspectives, and the datasets commonly used for satellite image forensics. We then detail each tampering detection and localization method, including their characteristics, advantages, disadvantages, and performance in detection or localization across various notable datasets. We also compare some representative forensic networks using evaluation metrics and public datasets. Finally, the anticipated future directions for satellite image forgery forensics are discussed.