FPGA Implementation of Combined Cryptography and Steganography To Achieve Enhanced Security
FPGA Implementation of Combined Cryptography and Steganography To Achieve Enhanced Security
Paper : 99
I. INTRODUCTION
In the modern era, the most celebrated word is digital. Ev-
erything is getting digitalized day by day. From buying goods
from grocery shops to large banking transactions, interacting
with people, even consultation with doctors are relying on
internet these days. Internet and online data transfer have
taken a strong control on the human livelihood and so the
data getting transferred over internet need to be secured. Data
security stands as an important pillar as different kinds of
data including personal data comes into picture. Cryptography
and Steganography are two important techniques that help to
provide data security. Cryptography is used to secure the data
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data, the authors conclude that AES algorithm is the best. original data at the receiver point. It makes use of wide variety
AES is the strongest algorithm due to its larger key size. It is of similar algorithm for this purpose. Cipher text is nothing but
stronger, provides higher throughput and takes less time. the encrypted or scrambled version of the original text and
[3] This paper implements AES algorithm with reduced none other than the intended user will be able to decode it and
delay and improved resource utilisation. They have achieved understand. There will be some key utilised in the algorithms
it when earlier Sbox was replaced in AES algorithm with an to cipher the original data and that key would be available
S box formed by combining MUX and LUTs. This reduced
the complexity and also delay was improved as values were
pre computed and stored in LUTs. This paper summarizes that
the complexity of S-box can be reduced by pre-computing the
values and keeping it in LUTs and they can be accessed as
per requirement using a MUX.
[4] This paper uses both the techniques namely, cryptogra-
phy, Steganography to provide 2 layer of secureness by using
an XOR operation for encryption and embedding cipher data
in to image using a preselected key. The authors have managed
to create a web based application that can give users the
access to make use of proposed method for data transmission.
The authors claim that extra security is added by combining
cryptography and steganography and it becomes cumbersome
for a 3rd party to interrupt the secure data transmission.
In some works [10], authors have implemented cryptogra-
phy with error detection based on parity so that possible errors
can be detected without extra hardware involved in it. [9] deals
with the implementation of AES algorithm in detail.
A. Cryptography
Cryptography is a learning of techniques of secure commu-
nications. It allows only the sender and correct recipient of the
message to see its contents. It is an important and inevitable
tool that helps in securing data of sensitive nature. Thus the
major intention or functionality of cryptography techniques
is to maintain the privacy and secureness of data. Basically
in cryptography, the data security is ensured by converting
it into cipher text before transmission and retrieving back the
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with the intended user to decode it. This helps in same bits of cipher text. The AES algorithm is depicted in
prevent- ing the unauthorized access to the information. The figure 1. AES algorithm performs operations on bytes of data.
actual meaning of cryptography can be understood from its It mainly involves 4 operations, substitution, shifting rows,
name itself where crypt means hidden and graphy means mixing columns and adding round sub key. These operations
writing. Thus cryptography means hidden writing. are repeated multiple rounds to generate the cipher data. The
Cryptography is broadly classified into three types: no. of iterations depend on the key size used for encryption
Symmetric key (private) cryptography, (Public key) and decryption as below:
Asymmetric cryptography, Hash functions. • key, 128 bit : 10 iterations.
1) Private key cryptography: The symmetric key cryptog- • key, 192 bit : 12 iterations.
raphy is also called as private key cryptography as its key
info will be available with only the sender and receiver. It uses
same key at sender side for encryption as well as at the
receiver end for decryption. This type of cryptographic
methods are simpler and gaster. The only challenge is to
transfer the key securely to the receiver. Algorithms
following this type of cryptography are Data Encryption
Standard (DES), Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) etc.
2) Public key cryptography: Asymmetric key
cryptography usee both private and public keys for
encryption and decryp- tion. It is also called public key
cryptographic technique as key is public at the sender end
for encryption. By the term public itself it means that the key
used for encryption is visible/available to everyone. But for
decryption at the receiver end, a private key is used. It is
known to the receiver (the person intended to receive the
message) only. Thus although the key used for encryption is
known to everyone only the authorised one with the key at
receiver point (private one) can decrypt data and thus making
it secure for data transfer.
3) Hash functions: Hash function will be used for many
operating systems for encryption of the password. It doesnt
involve any key for providing security. Instead, creates a
hash value of fixed length based on the text and thus makes it
impossible to recover the contents of the text. The various
ap- plications of cryptography involve encryption of
passwords, in case of digital currencies, data security during
web browsing, authentication purpose, while using electronic
signatures, end to end encryption etc. The most widely
utilised and strongest cryptography algorithm is AES
algorithm.
B. AES Algorithm
AES stands for Advanced Encryption Standard and it
is the symmetric key cryptographic algorithmwhich uses
same private key at both the sender and receiver for
encryption and decryption respectively. AES algorithm is
mostly used nowadays as it is very stronger comparing to
other algorithms like DES, triple DES etc. due to its larger
key size. The key size of AES algorithm can be 128 bits or
192 bits or 256 bits. It operates on 128 bit data and outputs
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• key, 256 bit : 14 iterations. bytes of data are replaced with the substitution values from S-
box. The S-box values are computed based on many complex
calculations of multiplication and affine transformation. The
complexity can be reduced by pre-computing these values store
it in the LUT which can be accessed as required using a
MUX.
2) Shifting rows: This is basically a permutation round that some secret data is being transferred. Both cryptography
where the rows are shifted. The 16 byte data is arranged in and steganography are used for
rows and columns. In this step, the 1st row only retained as
such. The 2nd row cyclically shifted left by one, the 3rd
shifted cyclically left by two and the 4th row shifted
three. Thus it permutes bytes of data. This is then given to
the mixing columns operation for further permutation. This is
shown in figure 3.
C. Steganography
Steganography is also a technique which is used to provide
data security when it is getting transferred. This technique
hides the data to be secured and transferred in some multi-
media element like image, audio etc. The original data
can be retrieved at the receiver end. Some authors [11] use
image cryptosystems. Here we use steganography. There are
many different ways by which steganography can be done.
Among that the much used method is to hide the sensitive
data in image and then transmit the image. Since the secret
data is embedded into the pixels of the image, it will be very
difficult for the attacker to detect the secret data.
Watermarking is also considered as a form of steganography.
It can considered as a trademark or method adopted by online
publishers to recognize the source of files which are shared
without permission. Addition of a steganographic layer after
encryption adds onto the security of the data. The main
advantage of steganography is that it helps to obscure the fact
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ensuring security of the data being transferred. However, they is altered to accommodate secret message based on the key
differ in the way that, in cryptography, data is encrypted to a used and some mathematical calculations. But in the proposed
non-readable form. Everyone can sense the presence of data model, the LSB method is employed by just replacing the
but cannot read it. But in steganography data I hided inside image pixels’ LSB bits with the secret message data bits in
a cover object due to which only the receiver can sense the view of reducing the complexity and thus improving the
presence of original data. For all others it will be some other resource utilisation. At the receiver end the original cipher
from which is the cover object. One of the steganographic
technique used to hide the data in image is the LSB technique
which is explained below.
1) LSB Method: LSB is the acronym for Least Signif-
icantBit which is, the right mostbit with the lower index
in a binary number. It is obvious from the name itself that
LSB steganographic method is something to do with the
LSB values. Thus in LSB steganography, the LSB values of
the pixels of the image (or any other multimedia element)
is replaced with the message to hide. This steganographic
image is then transmitted. In conventional methods, the LSB
values are replaced based on a key available and performing
some calculations with the key and secret message to replace
the LSB. This is complex and tiresome for a 3rd party to
sense or deduce the secret message. But in proposed method,
involvement of key has been eliminated in view of reducing
the complexity and thus improving the resource utilisation.
A simple example of LSB technique in proposed method is
shown below. When applying LSB technique to every byte of
24-bit image, 3 bits can be embedded into each pixel.
Pixels:(00100111 11101001 11001000) (00100111
11001000 11101001) (11001000 00100111 11101001)
A: 01000001 (secret message)
Result: (00100110 11101001 11001000) (00100110
11001000 11101000) (11001000 00100111 11101001)
IV. IMPLEMENTATION, RESULTS
A. Proposed Work
The proposed work is intended to increase the security
of data being transferred. Here, double layer security is
provided by combining techniques called Cryptography and
Steganography. Cryptography encrypts the original data to
form the cipher text. The algorithm used for encryption in
the proposed model is the AES algorithm which is resistant
to many types of attacks as it uses a stronger key. AES is
symmetry cryptographic algorithm which provides a better
protection to data being transferred. The encrypted information
is again protected by employing a technique called steganog-
raphy where the encrypted message is hided inside the pixels
of an image. The image can then be transmitted so that the
attacker/hacker will not be aware of the actual data getting
transferred and hence it adds to extra security layer. The LSB
technique is employed here for steganography. According to
the conventional LSB method, the LSB bit of the image pixels
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Fig. 5. Steganography
B. Results
The simulation outputs of encryption, decryption,
steganog- raphy and combined cryptograpy and
steganography are shown in the figures 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11
respectively. Encryption technique and Decryption technique
is done for key size of 128, 192 and 256 bits. Simulation
outputs of each as well as the combined simulation output is
also shown.
Fig. 6. Encryption
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The encrypted text is recovered from steganographic image Fig. 10. Recovered Cipher Data from Stego Image
pixels at receiver end. Encrypted text is given as input to
the decryption code along with the same keys as used for
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