Forensic analysis of video steganography tools

Abstract

Steganography is the art and science of concealing information in such a way that only the sender and intended recipient of a message should be aware of its presence. Digital steganography has been used in the past on a variety of media including executable files, audio, text, games and, notably, images. Additionally, there is increasing research interest towards the use of video as a media for steganography, due to its pervasive nature and diverse embedding capabilities.In this work, we examine the embedding algorithms and other security characteristics of several video steganography tools. We show how all feature basic and severe security weaknesses. This is potentially a very serious threat to the security, privacy and anonymity of their users. It is important to highlight that most steganography users have perfectly legal and ethical reasons to employ it. Some common scenarios would include citizens in oppressive regimes whose freedom of speech is compromised, people trying to avoid massive surveillance or censorship, political activists, whistle blowers, journalists, etc. As a result of our findings, we strongly recommend to cease any use of these tools, and to remove any contents that may have been hidden, and any carriers stored, exchanged and/or uploaded online. For many of these tools, carrier files will be trivial to detect, potentially compromising any hidden data and the parties involved in the communication. We finish this work by presenting our steganalytic results, that highlight a very poor current state of the art in practical video steganography tools. There is unfortunately a complete lack of secure and publicly available tools, and even commercial tools offer very poor security. We therefore encourage the steganography community to work towards the development of more secure and accessible video steganography tools, and make them available for the general public. The results presented in this work can also be seen as a useful resource for forensic examiners to determine the existence of any video steganography materials over the course of a computer forensic investigation.

Hex Symbols Algorithm for Anti-Forensic Artifacts on Android Devices

“…The redundant bits are modified and replaced with the bits of the secret message to be exchanged by parties involved. This process prevents any third party lacking the knowledge of the secret key and the chosen embedding algorithm from discovering the embedded data or breaching the carrier file contents [3]. The general steganography process is summarized in Fig.1.…”

“…According to [3], "Steganography is the art and science of hiding information in plain sight". Thus, through steganography, a stego-system unknown to third, uninvolved parties can be created to allow for data exchange under extremely secure conditions.…”

“…Steganography systems are utilized to embed secret data in image, audio and video files that can only be discovered by the parties informed of the secret key of the steganography chosen algorithm. Thus, steganography introduces a higher level of complexity that would protect against attacks but at the same time create an obstacle for forensic investigations [3]. Current steganography approaches have been observed to present some disadvantages that require the development of a new approach or a solution to be overcome.…”

AES Inspired Hex Symbols Steganography for Anti-Forensic Artifacts on Android Devices

“…The hexadecimals are modified and replaced with the hexadecimals of the secret message to be exchanged by parties involved. This process prevents any third party lacking the knowledge of the secret key and the chosen embedding algorithm from discovering the embedded data or breaching the carrier file contents [3].…”

“…Thus, steganography introduces a higher level of complexity that would protect against attacks but at the same time create an obstacle for forensic investigations [3]. This paper will be proposing a new steganography approach inspired by the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) process, a formal encryption method adopted by the National Institute of Standards and Technology of the US Government, and is accepted worldwide.…”