Survey on Universal Image Steganalysis

Ooverwhelming growth in communication technology and usage of internet has greatly facilitated transfer of data. The threat of unauthorized data access is increasing along with it. Since last decade, too many data hiding methods have been proposed. Because of large number of redundant bits, image has become popular carrier for data hiding techniques. The advancement in image steganography has put forward many security threats like: unauthorized data transmission and reception, commercial spy and terrorist activities etc. To overcome these problems, researchers have started working on development of a method that can detect the existence of hidden message. Broadly speaking these steganalysis techniques are classified in two categories: specific and universal steganalysis. This paper describes various methods proposed by researchers for universal steganalysis. As it is not possible to know which method was used by transmitter, we need to work towards universal approach. This paper analyzes useful contribution made by various researchers in the field of universal steganalysis. Keywords— Universal Steganalysis, Cover-Image, StegoImage, Classifier.