security enhancement of image hiding technique in mobile application ...

RESEARCH PAPERS

SECURITY ENHANCEMENT OF IMAGE HIDING TECHNIQUE IN MOBILE APPLICATION USING SMS MODULE By CHANDRAKANT BADGAIYAN Assistant Professor, Department of Mechatronics Engg., Chhattisgarh Swami Vivekanand Technical University, Chattisgarh, India.

ABSTRACT The field of data security has attracted everybody's attention due to digitization of whole world. Now shopping on internet, sending e-mails, transfer of documents, and all other type of data like text, image, audio or video are considered as a common habit and the needs of mankind. But neither the medium used for data transfer is secured nor the storage media from hackers which encouraged data hiding techniques like Encryption and Steganography. On the other hand the world is being mobile day by day and almost all type of services is being ported on mobile phones whether it is messaging services, internet services, entertainment services, sensor based services or financial services in the form of various mobile applications. Millions of these applications are downloaded on mobile phones daily from all part of the world. In this paper, the authors to accomplish covert communication of images using mobile application as cover data and in order to provide authentication check to this new technique the authors used SMS module concept. SMS module allows only registered or authorised user to download the application and has many other advantages. This technique has overcome the problem of other Steganographic techniques like limited payload capacity with added advantage of mobility and portability as it runs on mobile phones instead of PC. Proposed technique was developed in J2ME platform and tested on Nokia C5 series phones. Keywords: J2ME, SMS, Encryption, Steganography, SMS Module. INTRODUCTION

data within a cover data such that other individuals fail to

Since 1985 after the advent of mobile phone, it has been

observe their existence [3]. The word steganography is a

developed such that today we are dependent on it due

Greek word that means "hidden writing". While

to its multifunctional behaviour. Initially mobile phones

implementing this method, the main purpose is to hide

were developed as a device for communication

data in a cover media such that other person will not

between two party but due to its all time presence with

notice that such information is there. This is the basic

human and portability, mobile phone are being changed

difference between Steganography and cryptography.

day by day in terms of advanced sensors, network

In steganography, individuals will not notice at all that

connections and sophisticated software support.

data exists in the sources [4]. Most of Steganographic

Softwares for Mobile phone are written by languages which are specialized dealing the specifications and limitations of the mobile phones. Some of the famous programming languages are C++ and J2ME (Java 2 Micro Edition), which is a embedded version of Java language for small devices such as mobile phones, set top box and PDAs (Personal Digital Assistant). Steganography is a method of secret exchange of data, became popular in recent years, mainly aimed to hide

techniques utilize images, video clips, text, music and sound files as cover files [5]. These techniques have been implemented on variety of systems such as computers and mobile phones [6]. The steganography method, in addition to application in cover exchange of information, is also used in fields like copyright protection, preventing e-document forging, etc [7] [16]. Various types of Steganographic technique exist are like Text, Image, Audio, Video and Protocol [1], [9]. Any

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RESEARCH PAPERS Steganographic technique performance can be

secret data is image type and its file format can be any

evaluated based on criteria Invisibility, Payload capacity,

type. This secret data is hidden inside the JAR file which is

Robustness against statistical attacks, Robustness against

executable files in case of J2ME based platform. Then this

cover data manipulation, Independent of file format and

JAD/JAR files are downloaded to mobile phones from the

Unsuspicious files [1], [10].

server or a website directly and then installed on it. In order

None of Steganographic technique fulfills all the above

to recover the secret image from application user has to

requirements. A trade off must be selected, depending

use his secret key and it will recover. User can again hide

on which requirements are more important for the

image by using his secret key. But this technique had no arrangement for user's authentication check [17]. For user

specific application [2], [15].

checking authentication of user the author implement

1. Survey Work In this section, a detailed analysis of Mobile application based on Steganographic technique and some of the previous Steganographic techniques implemented on

SMS Module [18] in Mobile based Steganographic technique [17] which is discussed in next section. 2. Methodology

mobile phone platform has been done. Various types of

In all type of Steganographic technique secret

steganography on mobile phones are basically based on

information is hidden into some Cover file based on some

SMS [11], [12], [13], [14], [8], MMS and mobile apps based

algorithm. Since these methods change cover file either

steganography which uses text steganography and

in spatial domain or in transform domain some properties

image steganography techniques.

of Cover file to hide Secret information based on

After in deep study of Steganographic techniques

particular Steganographic Algorithm. Because of these process changes in cover data first disadvantage is the

following problems are identified: · There is no standard way to embed all type of data i.e.

text, image, audio and video, in a single cover data [1]. · Same algorithm cannot be used for all formats of

data like for image BITMAP, PNG and JPEG [1]. · Amount of data being embedded is limited because

of cover size dependency.

amount of payload is limited and also dependent on the size of cover data and changes in cover data caused in noise production in cover image. Hence in this technique of image hiding in mobile application, the author mix secret image with mobile application resources in such a way that it cannot be retrieved from any other means except by using Mobile Apps in running state [17]. The control flow diagram is

· High processing power and high time is required for

PC Based Stego Technique

Mobile Based Stego Technique

Connectivity

Internet Required

SMS/MMS/WAP Is Available, Internet Is Extra

2

Cost

Costly Affairs (Starting From 17000 Rs)

Huge Range(J2me Devices Starting From 2000 Rs)

3

Processing Power Required

High

Low

authors shift Steganographic technique to Mobile

4

Processing Speed

High

Low

platform. Hence Table 1 shows the advantages while

5

Portability

No

Yes

using a mobile as platform over PC based

6

Size/Weight

7

Future Scope

Difficult To Carry Everywhere Saturated field

Small Easily Carry Enormous

8

Application

Stand alone

All movable apps

current algorithms.

S. No.

Property

1

· Dependency of Personal Computer is there, for

reproduction of secret information which is a costly affair and not a portable solution. Most of techniques available in the field of steganography are PC oriented. In this approach the

Steganographic techniques. Above all problems were solved by the Mobile apps based Steganographic techniques [17]. In this technique

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Table 1. Comparison of PC based steganography and mobile based steganography

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RESEARCH PAPERS shown in Figure 1. This technique has no way of user

obtained by implementing the SMS module on this.

authentication check and real time interactive

· This proposed method enables only authorized or

communication. For enhancing the capability of mobile

registered user to download the applications by using IMEI

apps based Steganographic method and improving its

number. This feature is very useful for secret agency.

security, the author implement SMS module [18] concept on it. The control flow diagram of this is shown in Figure 2. The proposed technique is implemented on J2ME enable

· SMS module can also be used for covert communication between server or a particular device and user device using SMS chat.

device and. Run & Tested on Nokia C5 phone. In order to achieve this, flow of control Figures 1 and 2 implemented in a Mobile Application which can be any utility like Paint Brush and entertainment application like any Mobile Game. In this case this utility application is Paint Brush. The result obtained are shown in Figure 3 and 4. 3. Result 3.1 Advantages Along with all the advantages of mobile application based steganography [17] following advantages are

Figure 2. Control flow diagram of SMS Module [18]

Figure1. Control flow diagram of technique [17]

Figure 3. Paint Brush App in Normal Mode

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RESEARCH PAPERS · It can also be used for used location identification

used by ground agents of secret agencies such as RAW,

and user registration.

CBI, FBI, CIA etc because of its mobility , portability, various

3.2 Limitations

modes of connectivity and less power usage features.

· In this proposed technique secret information is

· Proposed technique can be used for covert

mixed with Mobile Application resource, though it does

communication such as chatting by SMS module use.

not catch any attention but it can be recovered by

It has no limitation related to type of file format, data type

extraction of Mobile Application package file or

and size of data, this can be used with almost all type

executable file. This problem can be resolved by

Steganographic application.

Binarization of secret data file.

4. Performance Evaluation

· As in this technique, secret embedded image can be

After implementation of SMS module in the Mobile Apps

retrieved by only means of secret key and that key is used

based Steganographic technique, we get the

in source code module of image recovering hence this

advantage of dynamically authorization check of user

password can be recovered by reverse engineering of

identity by its IMEI number and only authorized user can

source code file. Obfuscation of source code is one

install and download our application. Registration of user

solution of this problem.

is done by concerned organization from its server side by

· Above both situation comes when user device goes

maintaining the phone no. of authorized used. SMS

in the hand of some hackers but this require not only large

module may also be useful in real time message transfer

time and a communication media between user mobile

between user and server.

and PC but also requires special type of software for

Conclusion

analyzing.

In this work, the author implemented SMS Module [18]

3.3 Applications

concept into a new Steganographic method which is

· Mobile based Steganography Technique can be

presented for hiding images into a completely new cover data i.e. a mobile application [17]. The payload capacity of Mobile based Steganographic technique is not dependent on the cover data. As this technique is a real time application for mobile phones user can access and use this at anywhere on his mobile phone, mobility is one of the prominent feature with this technique which was not available in others techniques used for Steganography. Proposed technique has limitation that secret image can be exposed to hacker when he has clue that a mobile application has contain a embedded secret image into it. Recovering image file from any unfair means will require media connection of mobile phones to PC and specialized software. It has also threat from code reverse engineering. Both of these limitations can be overcome by using Obfuscation in coding and Binarization of resource data. Now by implementing SMS module concept the authors increased its security which is discussed in Table 2. Many

Figure 4. After Applying Secret Key, Image Display Mode

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m o b i l e p h o n e s s u p p o r t J a v a p l a t f o r m, a n d

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RESEARCH PAPERS Property

Without SMS Module

With SMS Module

Real Time Communication Authentication Check Using IMEI No.

No

Communication Using Chatting Is Possible Only Authorized User Are Allowed To Download Apps

3

S/W Activation Key Transfer

No

This Check Can Be Applied Using Sms Module

4

Software User Registration

No

It Can Be Used To Register User’s Phone No.

1 2

5

GPS Based Location Tracking Of User

No

No

It May Be Used For Continuously Tracing The Location Of User

Table 2. Comparison of Mobile Application based Steganographic techniques with and without implementation of SMS Module concept

approximately all mobile phones can download mobile

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application, so this method can be implemented on

Steganography in SMS”, IEEE Wireless and Optical

wide range of mobile phones. This method has real time

Communications Networks, 2006 IFIP International

applications for all spy agencies.

Conference.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR D

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