In this article, we'll learn
about Steghide. There are various steganography
tools available but the part that differentiates it is
that it uses a variety of algorithms to encrypt the data. Moreover, Steghide
supports to hide data behind any image(jpg/jpeg/png/gif/bmp), audio (mp3/wav),
excel, etc.
Table of Content
·
Introduction to Steganography
·
Introduction to Steghide
·
Features
·
Installation of Steghide
·
Getting Start with Steghide
·
Functionality of Steghide
o
Embedding of Data Via Steghide
o
Extraction of Data Via Steghide
o
Password Protect Files
o
Retrieve Information of Embedded File
o
Verbose Mode
o
Compression Mode
o
Anti-compression Mode
o
Embedding File Without Name
o
Encrypting Algorithms
o
Overwriting the Existing File
Introduction to Steganography
In digital steganography,
electronic communications may incorporate steganographic coding inside of a
transport layer, such as a document file, picture file, program or convention.
Media records are perfect for steganographic transmission since of their
expansive estimate. For instance, a sender might begin with a harmless picture
and make few alterations to it in order to hide data, so that, this alteration
goes unnoticed for someone who is not particularly seeking out for it.
The upside of steganography over cryptography
alone is that the planned mystery message does not stand out to itself as an
object of examination. Clearly obvious scrambled messages—regardless of how
unbreakable—stimulate intrigue, and may in themselves be implicating in nations
where encryption is illicit. In this manner, while cryptography is the act of
securing the substance of a message alone, steganography is worried about
hiding the way that a mystery message is being sent, just as disguising the substance
of the message.
Introduction to Steghide
Steghide may be a steganography
device which permits you to cover up confidential records inside a picture or
sound record with a passphrase. Bolsters BMP and JPEG picture groups, AU and
WAV sound groups. By default, its employments Rijndael calculation to scramble
the record and the key measure is 128 bits. This tool has its advantages and
disadvantages. One upside is that it is significantly better at covering up and
can without much of a stretch shroud any document type. It does as such by
utilizing a propelled calculation to shroud it inside the picture (or sound)
record without changing the look (or sound) of the document. This additionally
implies without utilizing steghide (or if nothing else a similar scientific
methodology as steghide) it is hard to extricate the concealed documents from
the picture.
Features
·
Compression
of embedded data
·
BMP, GIF
and JPG supported
·
Encryption
of embedded data
·
Decryption
via password
·
Uses
various algorithms for encryption
INSTALLATION
Let's start with the installation of steghide.
In windows, we can download steghide from http://steghide.sourceforge.net/download.php.
After downloading we have to simply unzip the files and use it through the cmd.
In linux, open your terminal and type the following command to download Steghide
:
apt-get install steghide
Getting Started with Steghide
To start Steghide, the most basic
option we use the help command. This command will display us all the options
that Steghide provides us.
steghide --help
Embedding Data in The Image
We hide data in the image using
Steghide so that only the person who acknowledges it can read that. So, we made
a text file named as user.txt in which we wrote our confidential data and
image.jpeg is that file in which we are embedding our data. To achieve this,
we'll be executing the following command:
steghide embed -ef -cf
Here, ef and cf is termed as
embedded file and cover file respectively.
Extraction of Data Via
Steghide
Using Steghide adds an extra
layer of security by allowing us to
use a password for it. Now, to extract the hidden data use the following
command :
steghide extract-sf
Then enter the password in order
to extract the file.
Here,
sf
is secret file
Password Protect Files
Now, we can also extract the
files using the following command. This command is different is that it
specifies password in the command itself, therefore, we do not need to specify
it separately.
steghide embed -ef -cf
-p
Retrieve Information of
Embedded File
If we have an image that is
suspected to have data hidden and if so, then which algorithm is used to
encrypt the data in the file. Then we will use the following command :
steghide info
VERBOSE MODE
To get each and every information
of a file during its extraction, we can use the verbose mode. Verbose mode
gives you detailed information. We can use verbose mode by executing the
following command :
steghide embed -v -ef -cf
COMPRESSION MODE
Now if we want to compress text
file before hiding it then we would use the following command. The compression
level can vary from 1 to 9. The first level gives you speed to compress whereas
at 9th level, it will provide you with best compression techniques.
steghide embed -ef -cf -z 2
Anti Compression Mode
Now if we don't want to compress a
file before hiding it then we will use the following command :
steghide embed -ef -cf -Z
Embedding File Without
Name
We can also hide a file without
naming it. We will use this command :
steghide embed -ef -cf -N
Encrypting Algorithms
We can encrypt the data that we
are hiding by using encryption
techniques. And this can be easily achieved by just using the following command
:
steghide embed -ef
-cf -e
Overwriting the
Existing File
When extracting the file let’s assume
we have already have a file in the same directory with the same name. then we
can use the following command to overwrite the existing file if that is
desired. And for this use the following command :
steghide extract -sf -f
Conclusion
So, this was the short guide
about Steghide. And as you can see, it is an easy tool for steganography. Its also
user friendly. It has, therefore, become one of the finest steganography tools
for extracting and embedding information in a multitude of media files Steghide
has many uses and its other notable characteristics such as file encryption
make it one of the finest steganography.
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