LSB based image steganography using X-Box mapping

Due to the high growth of Internet and its applications over the network, there is a need of high level of security for the data to transfer between the networks. Steganography is a technique of hiding the data over the medium so that no one knows that there is any communication going on except the sender and receiver. This paper gives an approach for Image Steganography to enhance the level of security for data transfer over the internet. The 24-bit RGB image is chosen as a cover image which hides the secret message inside red, green and blue color pixel values. There is an X-Box mapping where several boxes are used which contains sixteen different values (X represents any integer value from 0-9). The values stored in the X-Boxes are mapped with the LSBs of the cover image. This mapping provides a level of security to the secret message which makes it difficult for the intruders to extract the hidden information. A Peak Signal-to-Noise Ratio is calculated which measure the quality of images used. Larger PSNR value indicates lower distortion and hence a better quality of image.