Comparative Study on Image Steganography: Knight Tour and Rivest Cipher Four Algorithms

Abstract

Image steganography is a process of hiding message behind an image file which focuses on protecting the existence of a message secret. There is a security risk in the current image steganography process. Since stego-image will be transferred on unsecured Internet network, attackers will attack and try to decode the message behind the stego-image because of the vulnerable algorithm. Therefore, it is very important to search for a method to make the process of encoding the stego-image more secure. There are many algorithms developed to make the stego-image become more secured. However, the usage of Knight Tour (KT) and Rivest Cipher Four (RC4) algorithms in image steganography are still insufficient although that the algorithms are claimed to be secured and robust. KT algorithm is an easy mathematical technique that can increase the security of hidden information, meanwhile, RC4 is known as a simple algorithm but systematic in cover image programming. In this paper, the performance of KT and RC4 algorithms are observed to measure the security and robustness of JPG image format. Peak Signal to Noise Ratio (PSNR) and Mean Square Error (MSE) are used to observe the image quality to improve the security factor in the stego-image. From the results, it is found that KT generated better performance compared to RC4.