A robust image steganography based on a novel technique by using improved DNA and modified chaotic approach

Abstract

After the tremendous development and fast growth in communication systems and electronic devices, information security and preservation have become one of the most important procedures to be considered when transferring data between two parties. Encryption and data hiding are two of the most important techniques to protect the information sent over networks and the Internet. In this paper, a new technique of encryption and concealment is used through the following steps: First, the secret information is encrypted by using developed DNA to get (S1), second, by scrambling the encrypted data, the (S1) is diffused by using a zigzag method to get (S2), third, re-obfuscation the (S2) by using developed zigzag method through using Tinkerbell technique to get (S3), fourth, perform XoR operation between the (S3) and the Tinkerbell technique to get (S4), and fifth, the (S4) is hidden in the random locations of the cover image based on the LSB technique and the Tinkerbell technology, where the Tinkerbell has incredibly excellent characteristics and used to generate random sequence numbers twice with different initial and parameters value, once for the encryption process for scrambling secret information and once for the hiding process for determining hidden locations. Several metrics were used to evaluate the system's efficiency: histogram, PSNR, MSE, mean absolute error, bit error rate, encryption quality, Unified Average Changing Intensity, hamming distance, entropy, and correlation coefficient. The experimental results display that the suggested method has a good performance and reliability, high security, and greater embedding capacity and ensures higher image quality; also, the proposed method presented preferable outcomes when compared to other approaches.