In this work, a novel hybrid algorithm has been developed for achieving imperceptible and robust image steganography for secure data communication. The novelty of the work lies in the careful manipulation of higher frequency coefficient of Discrete Cosine Transform (DCT) to maintain the perceptual quality of the image followed by embedding secret bits in the controlled DCT coefficients using random locations identified by deterministic Coupled Chaotic Map (CCM). The randomness of the CCM map is confirmed by National Institute of Standards and Technology, DIEHARD, ENT and TestU01 test suites. The experimental results demonstrate that the proposed technique has excellent stego-image quality keeping zero Bit Error Rate at maximum embedding capacity (EC). The proposed method has capability to withstand against malicious users as well as outperforms existing steganography techniques in terms of EC, and Peak Signal to Noise Ratio. The security of the proposed technique is subsequently examined by the key length, key sensitivity parameter and histogram analysis.

中文翻译：

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一种用于鲁棒图像隐写术的混合算法

在这项工作中，开发了一种新颖的混合算法，以实现用于安全数据通信的不易察觉和鲁棒的图像隐写术。这项工作的新颖之处在于仔细操作离散余弦变换 (DCT) 的高频系数以保持图像的感知质量，然后使用确定性耦合混沌映射 (CCM) 识别的随机位置在受控 DCT 系数中嵌入秘密位）。CCM 图的随机性得到了美国国家标准与技术研究院、DIEHARD、ENT 和 TestU01 测试套件的确认。实验结果表明，所提出的技术具有出色的隐写图像质量，并在最大嵌入容量 (EC) 下保持零误码率。所提出的方法具有抵御恶意用户的能力，并且在 EC 和峰值信噪比方面优于现有的隐写技术。随后通过密钥长度、密钥灵敏度参数和直方图分析来检查所提出技术的安全性。