An Information Security Approach Based on Text Steganography

Frequency of attacks and intrusions are rising at an alarming rate, thus importance of having a secure mechanism for communication is paramount. Encryption is a robust method for security but its employment attracts eavesdropper’s attention. Steganography comes to rescue by hiding the existence of communication by concealing the secret message in a cover media like text, image, audio or video. Image and video are widely used but text is most suitable as it is everywhere and has small size compared to other forms of media. However text does not necessarily have sufficient redundant components for concealment of message and often size of message that can be concealed is trivial. In this paper, a new approach based on text steganography combined with elements of cryptography is given to ensure better payload carrying capacity while maintaining low profile. Keywords— information security; text steganography; cover text; stego text; covert communication