Framework for Efficient Secure Steganographic Communication over Network Protocols

Security by obscurity has gained attention; as a result steganography is becoming more popular in the network communication. Network steganography describes various methods used for transmitting data over a network without it being detected. Most of the methods proposed for hiding data in a network do not offer an additional protection to the covert data as it is sent as plain text. This paper presents a framework that offers the protection to the covert data by encrypting it and compresses it for gain in efficiency. Several ways of sending covert information through network using TCP/IP protocol are discussed. Also, the communication made more secure and efficient by using compression and encryption techniques. Finally, the performance of the proposed framework is compared with other steganography tools.