Steganography – Hiding Critical Information through Multimedia-Audio File

Abstract

Today’s networked based information systems are transferring secret data electronically. Numbers of Cryptographic techniques are available to protect such data. One lesser known but rapidly growing method is Steganography; it is an art and science of hiding information such that it does not even appear to exist. Steganography can be used to hide messages, secret keys, private data or information into a text file, image, audio or a video file. There are certain disadvantages when we use only cryptographic techniques. Attacker can easily understand that something important is stored in the encrypted message. Combination of Cryptography and Steganography allows us to send the sensitive data through the use of multimedia file with the great security. In this paper we had proposed new algorithm for implementing greater security on the information being transferred over the network by combining Cryptographic techniques and Steganography using an audio file. The paper also describes the advantages and disadvantages of proposed algorithm, as well as, strengths and weaknesses of the Steganography.