Data Hiding in Image Using Modified Minimum Reference Pixel-Based Steganographic Method with Random Pixel Block Selection Algorithm

Nowadays, most of the information are kept electronically due to the advances in information and communication technology. Consequently, information security becomes a fundamental issue. Steganography can be employed to secure the secret data by hiding its presence in multimedia carriers (text, image, audio, and video.) during storage and transmission. Among different carrier formats, digital image are the most popular objects due to the presence of redundant information in image which can be modified without perceptual transparency in embedding process. Hence, the main aim of this paper is to propose an efficient image steganographic technique for secure data hiding system based on Minimum Reference Pixel-Based Steganographic Algorithm (MRPSA). In the proposed system, the pixel positions in image are randomly selected using proposed Random Pixel Block Selection Algorithm (RPBSA) before hiding the secret message in order to make more difficult steganalysis for intruders. In addition, using proposed embedding algorithm, only two bits of secret message is hidden in Red channel of each pixel of the cover image depending on the random selected position to preserve the image quality. Therefore, the generated stego image will not attract much attention to intruders and meet the security requirement of steganographic system.