Stegomalware is the art of hiding malicious software with steganography. Steganography is the technique of hiding data in a seemingly innocuous carrier. The occurrence of stegomalware is increasing, with attackers using ingenious techniques to avoid detection. Through a literature review, this thesis explores prevalent techniques used by attackers and their efficacy. Furthermore, it investigates detection techniques and defensive measures against stegomalware. The results show that embedding information in images is common for exfiltrating data or sending smaller files to an infected host. Word, Excel, and PDF documents are common with phishing emails as the entry vector for attacks. Most of the common Internet protocols are used to exfiltrate data with HTTP, ICMP and DNS showed to be the most prevalent in recent attacks. Machine learning anomaly-based detection techniques show promising results for detecting unknown malware, however, a combination of several techniques seems preferable. Employee knowledge, Content Threat Removal, and traffic normalization are all effective defenses against stegomalware. The stegomalware landscape shows an increase of attacks utilizing obfuscation techniques, such as steganography, to bypass security and it is most likely to increase in the near future.

<p>Digital image steganography is the process of embedding information withina cover image in  a  secure,  imperceptible,  and  recoverable  way.The  three  main  methods  of  digital  image steganography  are  spatial,  transform,  and  neural  network  methods. Spatial  methods  modify  the pixel  valuesof  an  image  to  embed  information,  while  transform  methods embed  hidden information within the frequency of the image.Neural network-based methods use neural networks to perform the hiding process, which is the focus of the proposed methodology.</p> <p>This  research  explores  the  use  of  deep  convolutional  neural  networks  (CNNs)  in  digital image steganography. This work extends an existing implementation that used a two-dimensional CNN to perform the preparation, hiding, and extraction phases of the steganography process. The methodology proposed in this research, however, introduced changes into the structure of the CNN and   used   a   gain   function   based   on   several   image   similarity   metrics   to   maximize   the imperceptibility between a cover and steganographic image.</p> <p>The  performance  of  the  proposed  method  was  measuredusing  some  frequently  utilized image metrics such as structured similarity index measurement (SSIM), mean square error (MSE), and  peak  signal  to  noise  ratio  (PSNR).  The  results  showed  that  the  steganographic  images produced by the proposed methodology areimperceptible to the human eye, while still providing good  recoverability.  Comparingthe  results  of  the  proposed  methodologyto  theresults  of  theoriginalmethodologyrevealed  that  our  proposed  network  greatly  improved  over  the  base methodology in terms of SSIM andcompareswell to existing steganography methods.</p>

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La stéganographie est l’art de la dissimulation de l’information secrète dans un médium donné (cover) de sorte que le médium résultant (stégo) soit quasiment identique au médium cover. De nos jours, avec la mondialisation des échanges (Internet, messagerie et commerce électronique), s’appuyant sur des médiums divers (son, image, vidéo), la stéganographie moderne a pris de l’ampleur. Dans ce manuscrit, nous avons étudié les méthodes de stéganographie LSB adaptatives, dans les domaines spatial et fréquentiel (DCT, et DWT), permettant de cacher le maximum d’information utile dans une image cover, de sorte que l’existence du message secret dans l’image stégo soit imperceptible et pratiquement indétectable. La sécurité du contenu du message, dans le cas de sa détection par un adversaire, n’est pas vraiment assurée par les méthodes proposées dans la littérature. Afin de résoudre cette question, nous avons adapté et implémenté deux méthodes (connues) de stéganographie LSB adaptatives, en ajoutant un système chaotique robuste permettant une insertion quasi-chaotique des bits du message secret. Le système chaotique proposé consiste en un générateur de séquences chaotiques robustes fournissant les clés dynamiques d’une carte Cat 2-D chaotique modifiée. La stéganalyse universelle (classification) des méthodes de stéganographie développées est étudiée. A ce sujet, nous avons utilisé l’analyse discriminante linéaire de Fisher comme classifieur des vecteurs caractéristiques de Farid, Shi et Wang. Ce choix est basé sur la large variété de vecteurs caractéristiques testés qui fournissent une information sur les propriétés de l’image avant et après l’insertion du message. Une analyse des performances des trois méthodes de stéganalyse développées, appliquées sur des images stégo produites par les deux méthodes de stéganographie LSB adaptatives proposées, est réalisée. L’évaluation des résultats de la classification est réalisée par les paramètres: sensibilité, spécificité, précision et coefficient Kappa. / Steganography is the art of the dissimulation of a secret message in a cover medium such that the resultant medium (stego) is almost identical to the cover medium. Nowadays, with the globalization of the exchanges (Internet, messaging and e-commerce), using diverse mediums (sound, embellish with images, video), modern steganography is widely expanded. In this manuscript, we studied adaptive LSB methods of stéganography in spatial domain and frequency domain (DCT, and DWT), allowing of hiding the maximum of useful information in a cover image, such that the existence of the secret message in the stégo image is imperceptible and practically undetectable. Security of the message contents, in the case of its detection by an opponent, is not really insured by the methods proposed in the literature. To solve this question, we adapted and implemented two (known) methods of adaptive stéganographie LSB, by adding a strong chaotic system allowing a quasi-chaotic insertion of the bits of the secret message. The proposed chaotic system consists of a generator of strong chaotic sequences, supplying the dynamic keys of a modified chaotic 2D Cat map. Universal steganalysis (classification) of the developed methods of stéganography, is studied. On this question, we used the linear discriminating analysis of Fisher as classifier of the characteristic vectors of Farid, Shi and Wang. This choice is based on the wide variety of tested characteristic vectors that give an information about the properties of the image before and after message insertion. An analysis of the performances of three developed methods of steganalysis, applied to the produced stego images by the proposed adaptive methods of stéganography, is realized. Performance evaluation of the classification is realized by using the parameters: sensibility, specificity, precision and coefficient Kappa.

Η ανάπτυξη του διαδικτύου τα τελευταία χρόνια έχει φέρει αλλαγές στο μέγεθος και την ποιότητα του διαθέσιμου περιεχομένου. Οι χρήστες κυριολεκτικά κατακλύζονται από πληροφορία η οποία μπορεί να έχει διάφορες μορφές όπως κείμενο, ήχο, εικόνα, βίντεο. Η μεγάλη εξάπλωση του διαδικτύου, η εύκολη αναζήτηση σε μεγάλο όγκο πληροφορίας καθώς και η παρουσίαση του περιεχομένου με φιλικό τρόπο προς το χρήστη συνέβαλε στην ολοένα αυξανόμενη ανάγκη για προμήθεια εικόνων, βίντεο και μουσικής. Η ψηφιοποίηση του μεγαλύτερου όγκου περιεχομένου που διαχειρίζονται οι χρήστες τόσο στην προσωπική όσο και στην επαγγελματική ζωή τους οδήγησε στην ανάπτυξη νέων τεχνικών στεγανογραφίας για την ανταλλαγή κρυφής πληροφορίας, έννοια η οποία είναι ευρέως γνωστή από την αρχαιότητα. Η παρούσα μεταπτυχιακή εργασία υλοποιεί δύο από τους πιο δημοφιλείς αλγορίθμους στεγανογράφησης τον (Least Significant Bit) και τον LBP (Local Binary Pattern). Το σύστημα που αναπτύχθηκε είναι διαθέσιμο στο διαδίκτυο και μπορεί να χρησιμοποιηθεί από οποιοδήποτε χρήστη επιθυμεί να αποκρύψει πληροφορία (κείμενο ή εικόνα) μέσα σε μια εικόνα. Το σύστημα υλοποιεί όλο τον κύκλο της στεγανογράφησης δίνοντας τη δυνατότητα στο χρήστη όχι μόνο να κάνει απόκρυψη της πληροφορίας που επιθυμεί αλλά και την αντίστροφη διαδικασία δηλαδή την ανάκτηση της κρυμμένης πληροφορίας. Η διαδικασία είναι απλή και απαιτεί από τον αποστολέα (αυτός που κρύβει το μήνυμα) το ανέβασμα της εικόνας στο σύστημα, την εισαγωγή ενός μυστικού κλειδιού το οποίο πρέπει να είναι γνωστό για την ανάκτηση του μηνύματος, και φυσικά το μήνυμα, δηλαδή η προς απόκρυψη πληροφορία. Στη συνέχεια ο παραλήπτης για να ανακτήσει το μήνυμα θα πρέπει να ανεβάσει στο σύστημα τη στεγανογραφημένη εικόνα καθώς και το μυστικό κλειδί που έχει συμφωνήσει με τον αποστολέα. Τέλος, με κάποια σενάρια χρήσης, πραγματοποιούνται μετρήσεις, οι οποίες δείχνουν την απόδοση κάθε αλγορίθμου και γίνονται οι αντίστοιχες συγκρίσεις. Το σύστημα που υλοποιήθηκε στην παρούσα εργασία μπορεί να συμπεριλάβει και άλλες μεθόδους στεγανογράφησης καθώς επίσης και με την επέκταση του αλγορίθμου LBP ώστε να χρησιμοποιεί και τις τρεις χρωματικές συνιστώσες για την απόκρυψη της πληροφορίας.. Επίσης, θα είχε ιδιαίτερο ενδιαφέρον η παροχή της συγκεκριμένης διαδικασίας σαν ηλεκτρονική υπηρεσία (web service) ώστε να είναι εφικτό να χρησιμοποιηθεί ανεξάρτητα και να μπορεί να εισαχθεί ως αυτόνομο κομμάτι λογισμικού σε κάθε πλατφόρμα που υποστηρίζει web services. / The development of the internet in recent years has brought changes in the size and quality of the available content. Users literally flooded with information which may have various forms like text, audio, image, and video. The wide spread of the internet, the ease of search in a large amount of information and the presentation of the available content in a friendly way resulted in the need for more images, videos and music. With the digitization of the available content new steganography techniques were necessary so that users can exchange secret information. In the current thesis two of the most popular steganography algorithms are implemented: the LSB (Least Significant Bit) and the LBP (Local Binary Pattern). The system is publicly available and can be used by any user who wishes to hide information (text or image) within an image. The system provides functionalities so that user can hide information within an image and recover the hidden information. The sender (the person who wishes to hide a message) has to provide the following information in the system: upload the image, provide the secret key needed to retrieve the message, and upload the message. The receiver has to upload the image containing the message and the secret key needed to recover the message. Anumber of usage scenarios are implemented to measure the performance of the algorithms and make comparisons. The implemented system can easily include more steganografy methods and also the extension of the LBP algorithm so that the three color components are used to hide the information. It would be interested to provide the current process as an e-service (web service) that it is feasible to be used independently and can be introduced as a standalone piece of software in any platform that supports web services.

The rapid development of data transfer through internet made it easier to send the data accurate and faster to the destination. There are many transmission media to transfer the data to destination like e-mails; at the same time it is may be easier to modify and misuse the valuable information through hacking. So, in order to transfer the data securely to the destination without any modifications, there are many approaches like cryptography and steganography. This paper deals with the image steganography as well as with the different security issues, general overview of cryptography, steganography and digital watermarking approaches.  The problem of copyright violation of multimedia data has increased due to the enormous growth of computer networks that provides fast and error free transmission of any unauthorized duplicate and possibly manipulated copy of multimedia information. In order to be effective for copyright protection, digital watermark must be robust which are difficult to remove from the object in which they are embedded despite a variety of possible attacks. The message to be send safe and secure, we use watermarking. We use invisible watermarking to embed the message using LSB (Least Significant Bit) steganographic technique. The standard LSB technique embed the message in every pixel, but my contribution for this proposed watermarking, works with the hint for embedding the message only on the image edges alone. If the hacker knows that the system uses LSB technique also, it cannot decrypt correct message. To make my system robust and secure, we added cryptography algorithm as Vigenere square. Whereas the message is transmitted in cipher text and its added advantage to the proposed system. The standard Vigenere square algorithm works with either lower case or upper case. The proposed cryptography algorithm is Vigenere square with extension of numbers also. We can keep the crypto key with combination of characters and numbers. So by using these modifications and updating in this existing algorithm and combination of cryptography and steganography method we develop a secure and strong watermarking method. Performance of this watermarking scheme has been analyzed by evaluating the robustness of the algorithm with PSNR (Peak Signal to Noise Ratio) and MSE (Mean Square Error) against the quality of the image for large amount of data. While coming to see results of the proposed encryption, higher value of 89dB of PSNR with small value of MSE is 0.0017. Then it seems the proposed watermarking system is secure and robust for hiding secure information in any digital system, because this system collect the properties of both steganography and cryptography sciences.

Today, eavesdropping is becoming a common issue in the rapidly growing digital network and has foreseen the need for secret communication channels embedded in digital media. In this paper, a novel steganography technique designed for Standard Definition Digital Television (SDTV) H.264/AVC encoded video sequences is presented. The algorithm introduced here makes use of the compression properties of the Context Adaptive Variable Length Coding (CAVLC) entropy encoder to achieve a low complexity and real-time inserting method. The chosen scheme hides the private message directly in the H.264/AVC bit stream by modifying the AC frequency quantized residual luminance coefficients of intrapredicted I-frames. In order to avoid error propagation in adjacent blocks, an interlaced embedding strategy is applied. Likewise, the steganography technique proposed allows self-detection of the hidden message at the target destination. The code source was implemented by mixing MATLAB 2010 b and Java development environments. Finally, experimental results have been assessed through objective and subjective quality measures and reveal that less visible artifacts are produced with the technique proposed by reaching PSNR values above 40.0 dB and an embedding bit rate average per secret communication channel of 425 bits/sec. This exemplifies that steganography is affordable in digital television.