Innovative image interpolation based reversible data hiding for secure communication

Abstract

Abstract In an increasingly digitized world, secure communication plays a pivotal role in safeguarding sensitive information and ensuring the confidentiality of data transmission. Conventional encryption techniques are robust but often result in a loss of data during transmission, making it challenging to achieve both security and image quality simultaneously. To address this issue, an innovative technique for interpolation-based reversible data hiding (RDH) within images is presented in this study. The interpolation scheme considers the Min function of the neighboring pixels and generates the cover image. After that, a data hiding method is applied to the cover image by considering the intensity range of the pixels using the least-significant bit (LSB) substitution method. The suggested embedding approach first encrypts the secret message, and then it encodes the encrypted secret message into interpolated pixels based on pixel intensity range groups. This technique enables the image to be consistently recreated once the data has been extracted. The percentage increment in the embedding capacity and peak signal-to-noise ratio (PSNR) is 40.00 and 8.64% for the proposed method as compared to the existing method. The experimental results indicate that the proposed technique enhanced the embedding capacity for all test pictures and produced higher PSNR values.

Keywords

• Embedding capacity
• Reversible data hiding
• Encryption
• Interpolation
• Least-significant bit