A Reversible Data-Hiding Method for Encrypted Images Based on Adaptive Quadtree Partitioning and MSB Prediction

Abstract

To address the vulnerability of the widely used block permutation and co-XOR (BPCX) encryption algorithm in reversible data-hiding in the encrypted domain (RDH-ED), which is susceptible to known-plaintext attacks (KPAs), and to enhance embedding capacity, we propose a novel technique of reversible data-hiding in encrypted images (RDH-EI). This method incorporates adaptive quadtree partitioning and most significant bit (MSB) prediction. To counteract KPAs, we introduce pixel modulation specifically targeting pixels within blocks of the same level during the encryption phase. During data embedding, we utilize tagging bits to indicate the state of the pixel blocks, capitalizing on pixel redundancy within those blocks to augment embedding capacity. Our experimental results demonstrate that our method not only achieves reversibility and separability but also significantly boosts embedding capacity and method security. Notably, the average embedding rate across the 10,000 images tested stands at 2.4731, surpassing previous methods by 0.2106 and 0.037, respectively.

Keywords

• adaptive quadtree partitioning
• adaptive most significant bit prediction
• image encryption
• known-plaintext attack
• reversible data-hiding in encrypted images