A prediction error based reversible data hiding scheme in encrypted image using block marking and cover image pre-processing

Abstract

A drastic change in communication is happening with digitization. Technological advancements will escalate its pace further. The human health care systems have improved with technology, remodeling the traditional way of treatments. There has been a peak increase in the rate of telehealth and e-health care services during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. These implications make reversible data hiding (RDH) a hot topic in research, especially for medical image transmission. Recovering the transmitted medical image (MI) at the receiver side is challenging, as an incorrect MI can lead to the wrong diagnosis. Hence, in this paper, we propose a MSB prediction error-based RDH scheme in an encrypted image with high embedding capacity, which recovers the original image with a peak signal-to-noise ratio (PSNR) of dB and structural similarity index (SSIM) value of 1. We scan the MI from the first pixel on the top left corner using the snake scan approach in dual modes: i) performing a rightward direction scan and ii) performing a downward direction scan to identify the best optimal embedding rate for an image. Banking upon the prediction error strategy, multiple MSBs are utilized for embedding the encrypted PHR data. The experimental studies on test images project a high embedding rate with more than 3 bpp for 16-bit high-quality DICOM images and more than 1 bpp for most natural images. The outcomes are much more promising compared to other similar state-of-the-art RDH methods.

Secure most significant bit plane compression based reversible data hiding in encrypted image technique using Huffman Ciphersystem

“…To achieve a higher level of security, the cover image is encrypted before being transmitted to the data-hider, and the secret data are also encrypted. The proposed scheme outperforms stateof-the-art and recently published works, 21,30,37,38 yielding better results. At last, concluding the proposed work, it can be said that the MSB difference value provides a small range, which helps in efficient compression to enhance EC, and a Huffman Ciphersystem enhances the level of security, which makes our work better than existing techniques.…”

“…10. Table 2 gives a comparison between state-of-the-art works 21,30,37,38 and our proposed scheme based on the ER for grayscale images. For instance, if we consider the Zelda image, then from Table 2, it can be seen that our proposed work achieves an ER of 2.52, whereas for existing methods a maximum of 2.01 is achieved as ER for Ref.…”

“…So, Yin et al 6 have given a multi-MSB prediction and HC-based RDHEI technique. Similarly, Panchikkil et al 30 have given an RDHEI scheme using block marking and PE. Snake scan order is used for pixel traversal, and the need to store flags is removed because of the predetermined space fixed for embedding.…”