An efficient high-capacity reversible data hiding scheme for encrypted images

• Published in: Journal of visual communication and image representation Vol. 66; p. 102744
• Main Authors: Guan, Bo, Xu, Dawen
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Elsevier Inc 01.01.2020
• Subjects: High capacity; Image encryption; Image security; MSB prediction; Reversible data hiding; Image security; Image encryption; Reversible data hiding; MSB prediction; High capacity
• ISSN: 1047-3203; 1095-9076
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jvcir.2019.102744

•An improved prediction method is designed to predict the current pixel value.•The multi-MSBs substitution is applied to achieve high embedding capacity.•The original image can be reconstructed losslessly by utilizing MSB prediction. Reversible data hiding in encrypted images is an effective technique to embed information in encrypted domain, without knowing the original content of the image or the encryption key. In this paper, a high-capacity reversible data hiding scheme for encrypted images based on MSB (most significant bit) prediction is proposed. Since the prediction is not always accurate, it is necessary to identify the prediction error and store this information in the location map. The stream cipher is then used to encrypt the original image directly. During the data hiding phase, up to three MSBs of each available pixel in the encrypted image are substituted by the bits of the secret message. At the receiving end, the embedded data can be extracted without any errors and the original image can be perfectly reconstructed by utilizing MSB prediction. Experimental results show that the scheme can achieve higher embedding capacity than most related methods.