Steganography is the practice of hiding messages in any medium, including digital communications. Steganalysis is the art of discovering and neutralizing these hidden messages. Legitimate steganalysis is used in law enforcement and computer forensics. Detection is done using special software, but deciphering and extracting the message is a separate issue. Research on steganalysis is ongoing.
Steganography – which comes from the Greek and means hidden or hidden writing – is the practice and techniques of concealing a message in any medium, including digital communications, to the extent that one does not even know there is a message, and is been practiced since ancient times. Stegananalysis is the counterpart: the art and science of discovering, extracting and neutralizing stealthy attempts at steganography. Of course, legitimate steganalysis is not interested in attacking all types of steganography: for example, it is not about trying to remove copyright markers from original works. Rather, it employs its techniques in the interest of law enforcement, particularly in computer forensics. That’s not to say that thieves, spies, terrorists, and criminals don’t use steganalysis—just that they apply its techniques to different ends.
Although the word steganography, when it entered English in the 16th century, first referred to cryptography, it now refers not to messages that are obscured by being rendered unreadable, but to messages that have been rendered nearly invisible. These messages can also be encrypted, but the purpose of steganography is to try to ensure that no one finds the message in the first place. This is why the steganalysis process begins with discovery.
Steganographic techniques are available to hide messages in digital audio, video, images, Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) headers, text documents, and other ways. These are, therefore, areas of interest in current steganalysis research. Several university research departments claim high detection rates above 98 percent with images containing certain types of steganographic material, but detection algorithms may be useless in the face of new techniques, so the goal for steganist is to create universal or general techniques . It is also more difficult to discover shorthand messages a) short/small; b) when noise has been added to mask its presence; and c) if they are embedded in hard-to-detect locations.
Detection is done using special software, and depending on the situation, knowing that there is a secret message can be the end of the analysis. However, detection is not the final step if the message is to be understood and is scrambled or encrypted, and how easily it can be deciphered will partly depend on whether a key is involved. In some cases, in fact, the goal is not only to decipher the message but to modify it. If the ultimate desire is to read the message or edit and send it, it must be extracted intact after detection, and that is also a separate issue. Steanalysis research is ongoing.
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