What is Steganography?
Steganography is
a means of obscuring data where secret messages are hidden
inside computer files such as images, sound files, videos and even
executable files so that, no one except the sender and the receiver will
suspect the existence of stealth information in it. Steganography may also
involve the usage of cryptography where the message is first encrypted before
it is concealed in another file. Generally, the messages appear to be something
else such as an image, sound or video so that the transfer of secret data
remains unsuspected.
The
main advantage of steganography over other methods such as
cryptography is that, it will not arose suspicion even if the files fall
in the hands of a third party. Unlike cryptographic messages, stegnographic
messages will no way attract the attention of a third party by
themselves. Thus stegnanography has an upper hand over cryptography as it
involves both encryption and obscurity.
What are the Applications of Steganography?
Steganography
is mainly used to obscure confidential information/data during storage or
transmission. For example, one can hide a secret message in an audio file and
send this to another party via email instead of sending the message in the
textual format. The receiver on the other end will decrypt the hidden message
using the private decryption key. In a worst case scenario, even if
a third party does manage to gain access to the email,
all he can find is the audio file and not the hidden data inside it. Other
usage of steganography include digital watermarking of images for reasons such
as copyright protection.
Eventhough
steganography has many useful applications, some may use this
technique for illegitimate purposes such as hiding a pornographic content in
other large files. Roumors about terrorists using steganography for
hiding and communicating their secret information and instructions are
also reported. An article claiming that, al-Queda had used steganography to
encode messages in images and transported them via e-mails, was reported
by New York Times, in October 2001.
How do Steganography Tools Work?
Stegnography
tools implement intelligent algorithms to carefully embed the encrypted text
messages or data inside other larger files such as an image, audio,
video or an executable file. Some tools will embed the encrypted data at the
end of another file so that there will be enough room for
storing larger data.
There
are many steganography tools available online but only a few are able to work
flawlessly. I did not find any tool that worked perfectly on both
small and large data. However I have managed to develop my own tool
that can work perfectly on all types of files and all size of data. The tool is
called “Stego Magic“. You can download it from the following link.
Download Stego Magic
The
zip file contains two versions of Stego Magic: One for encrypting the
text messages and the other for encrypting binary files. StegoMagic_TXT
can be used to hide text messages in other files such as an image or a sound
file. StegoMagic_BIN can be used to hide one binary file in another such
as an executable file inside an image or an image inside a video file.
With
Stego Magic, there is no limitation on the size and type of the file
that you are intending to hide. For example, you can hide a video of size 1
GB in an image of size 1 MB or hide an executable file inside a WORD
document. The tool is pretty straightforward to use and requires no special
understanding of the concept.
At
the end of the encryption process, a secret decryption key will be
generated and the same is required during the decryption process.
How to Use Stego Magic?
Suppose
you want to hide a text message inside a JPG file:
1.
Place the JPG and the text file (.txt) in the same folder as that of StegoMagic_TXT.exe
2. Run
StegoMagic_TXT.exe and follow the screen instructions to embed the text
message inside the JPG image.
3.
Note down the secret decryption key.
Now
you can send this image to your friend via email. To decrypt the hidden
message, your friend should load this JPG file onto the Stego Magic tool
and use the secret decryption key.
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