Optimal Data Embedding in Image Steganography Using CWT and LSB Masking Technique

Abstract -In today’s world of Internet every digitized object can be made exchangeable and transferable over the communication channel for various purposes. There are numerous security threats over the internet for digitized objects and hence they have to be made secure. Therefore, methods like steganography are gaining importance day by day. Steganography is the art which tends to obscure a part of information or useful data into another. Steganography can be applied on different file formats like audio, video, text and image. In image steganography data can be hidden in two domains namely Spatial and Transform domains. This paper proposes a technique for hiding image into another image using Continous Wavelet Transform (CWT) Method which helps in converting the data into higher and lower frequency components and also the LSB method for converting those components into bit stream and hiding the data in the last three bits of the covered medium. At the destination side the hidden data is recovered using Inverse Continous Wavelet Transform. Experimental results show a better PSNR value and lower MSE with increased capacity and security.