Khan Muhammad

A novel magic LSB substitution method (M-LSB-SM) using multi-level encryption and achromatic component of an image

Image Steganography is a thriving research area of information security where secret data is embedded in images to hide its existence while getting the minimum possible statistical detectability. This paper proposes a novel magic least significant bit substitution method (M-LSB-SM) for RGB images. The proposed method is based on the achromatic component (I-plane) of the hue-saturation-intensity (HSI) color model and multi-level encryption (MLE) in the spatial domain. The input image is transposed and converted into an HSI color space. The I-plane is divided into four sub-images of equal size, rotating each sub-image with a different angle using a secret key. The secret information is divided into four blocks, which are then encrypted using an MLE algorithm (MLEA). Each sub-block of the message is embedded into one of the rotated sub-images based on a specific pattern using magic LSB substitution. Experimental results validate that the proposed method not only enhances the visual quality of stego images but also provides good imperceptibility and multiple security levels as compared to several existing prominent methods.

Dual-Level Security based Cyclic18 Steganographic Method and its Application for Secure Transmission of Keyframes during Wireless Capsule Endoscopy

In this paper, the problem of secure transmission of sensitive contents over the public network Internet is addressed by proposing a novel data hiding method in encrypted images with dual-level security. The secret information is divided into three blocks using a specific pattern, followed by an encryption mechanism based on the three-level encryption algorithm (TLEA). The input image is scrambled using a secret key, and the encrypted sub-message blocks are then embedded in the scrambled image by cyclic18 least significant bit (LSB) substitution method, utilizing LSBs and intermediate LSB planes. Furthermore, the cover image and its planes are rotated at different angles using a secret key prior to embedding, deceiving the attacker during data extraction. The usage of message blocks division, TLEA, image scrambling, and the cyclic18 LSB method results in an advanced security system, maintaining the visual transparency of resultant images and increasing the security of embedded data. In addition, employing various secret keys for image scrambling, data encryption, and data hiding using the cyclic18 LSB method makes the data recovery comparatively more challenging for attackers. Experimental results not only validate the effectiveness of the proposed framework in terms of visual quality and security compared to other state-of-the-art methods, but also suggest its feasibility for secure transmission of diagnostically important keyframes to healthcare centers and gastroenterologists during wireless capsule endoscopy.

A Secure Method for Color Image Steganography using Gray-Level Modification and Multi-level Encryption

Security of information during transmission is a major issue in this modern era. All of the communicating bodies want confidentiality, integrity, and authenticity of their secret information. Researchers have presented various schemes to cope with these Internet security issues. In this context, both steganography and cryptography can be used effectively. However, major limitation in the existing steganographic methods is the low-quality output stego images, which consequently results in the lack of security. To cope with these issues, we present an efficient method for RGB images based on gray level modification (GLM) and multi-level encryption (MLE). The secret key and secret data is encrypted using MLE algorithm before mapping it to the grey-levels of the cover image. Then, a transposition function is applied on cover image prior to data hiding. The usage of transpose, secret key, MLE, and GLM adds four different levels of security to the proposed algorithm, making it very difficult for a malicious user to extract the original secret information. The proposed method is evaluated both quantitatively and qualitatively. The experimental results, compared with several state-of-the-art algorithms, show that the proposed algorithm not only enhances the quality of stego images but also provides multiple levels of security, which can significantly misguide image steganalysis and makes the attack on this algorithm more challenging.

A hybrid model of Internet of Things and cloud computing to manage big data in health services applications

Abstract Over the last decade, there has been an increasing interest in big data research, especially for health services applications. The adoption of the cloud computing and the Internet of Things (IoT) paradigm in the healthcare field can bring several opportunities to medical IT, and experts believe that it can significantly improve healthcare services and contribute to its continuous and systematic innovation in a big data environment such as Industry 4.0 applications. However, the required resources to manage such data in a cloud-IoT environment are still a big challenge. Accordingly, this paper proposes a new model to optimize virtual machines selection (VMs) in cloud-IoT health services applications to efficiently manage a big amount of data in integrated industry 4.0. Industry 4.0 applications require to process and analyze big data, which come from different sources such as sensor data, without human intervention. The proposed model aims to enhance the performance of the healthcare systems by reducing the stakeholders’ request execution time, optimizing the required storage of patients’ big data and providing a real-time data retrieval mechanism for those applications. The architecture of the proposed hybrid cloud-IoT consists of four main components: stakeholders’ devices, stakeholders’ requests (tasks), cloud broker and network administrator. To optimize the VMs selection, three different well-known optimizers (Genetic Algorithm (GA), Particle swarm optimizer (PSO) and Parallel Particle swarm optimization (PPSO) are used to build the proposed model. To calculate the execution time of stakeholders’ requests, the proposed fitness function is a composition of three important criteria which are CPU utilization, turn-around time and waiting time. A set of experiments were conducted to provide a comparative study between those three optimizers regarding the execution time, the data processing speed, and the system efficiency. The proposed model is tested against the state-of-the-art method to evaluate its effectiveness. The results show that the proposed model outperforms on the state-of-the-art models in total execution time the rate of 50%. Also, the system efficiency regarding real-time data retrieve is significantly improved by 5.2%.

Image steganography using uncorrelated color space and its application for security of visual contents in online social networks

Abstract Image steganography is a growing research field, where sensitive contents are embedded in images, keeping their visual quality intact. Researchers have used correlated color space such as RGB, where modification to one channel affects the overall quality of stego-images, hence decreasing its suitability for steganographic algorithms. Therefore, in this paper, we propose an adaptive LSB substitution method using uncorrelated color space, increasing the property of imperceptibility while minimizing the chances of detection by the human vision system. In the proposed scheme, the input image is passed through an image scrambler, resulting in an encrypted image, preserving the privacy of image contents, and then converted to HSV color space for further processing. The secret contents are encrypted using an iterative magic matrix encryption algorithm (IMMEA) for better security, producing the cipher contents. An adaptive LSB substitution method is then used to embed the encrypted data inside the V-plane of HSV color model based on secret key-directed block magic LSB mechanism. The idea of utilizing HSV color space for data hiding is inspired from its properties including de-correlation, cost-effectiveness in processing, better stego image quality, and suitability for steganography as verified by our experiments, compared to other color spaces such as RGB, YCbCr, HSI, and Lab. The quantitative and qualitative experimental results of the proposed framework and its application for addressing the security and privacy of visual contents in online social networks (OSNs), confirm its effectiveness in contrast to state-of-the-art methods.

Mobile-cloud assisted framework for selective encryption of medical images with steganography for resource-constrained devices

In this paper, the problem of outsourcing the selective encryption of a medical image to cloud by resource-constrained devices such as smart phone is addressed, without revealing the cover image to cloud using steganography. In the proposed framework, the region of interest of the medical image is first detected using a visual saliency model. The detected important data is then embedded in a host image, producing a stego image which is outsourced to cloud for encryption. The cloud which has powerful resources, encrypts the image and sent back the encrypted marked image to the client. The client can then extract the selectively encrypted region of interest and can combine it with the region of non-interest to form a selectively encrypted image, which can be sent to medical specialists and healthcare centers. Experimental results and analysis validate the effectiveness of the proposed framework in terms of security, image quality, and computational complexity and verify its applicability in remote patient monitoring centers.

Secure video summarization framework for personalized wireless capsule endoscopy

Abstract Wireless capsule endoscopy (WCE) has several benefits over traditional endoscopy such as its portability and ease of usage, particularly for remote internet of things (IoT)-assisted healthcare services. During the WCE procedure, a significant amount of redundant video data is generated, the transmission of which to healthcare centers and gastroenterologists securely for analysis is challenging as well as wastage of several resources including energy, memory, computation, and bandwidth. In addition to this, it is inherently difficult and time consuming for gastroenterologists to analyze this huge volume of gastrointestinal video data for desired contents. To surmount these issues, we propose a secure video summarization framework for outdoor patients going through WCE procedure. In the proposed system, keyframes are extracted using a light-weighted video summarization scheme, making it more suitable for WCE. Next, a cryptosystem is presented for security of extracted keyframes based on 2D Zaslavsky chaotic map. Experimental results validate the performance of the proposed cryptosystem in terms of robustness and high-level security compared to other recent image encryption schemes during dissemination of important keyframes to healthcare centers and gastroenterologists for personalized WCE.

Visual saliency models for summarization of diagnostic hysteroscopy videos in healthcare systems

In clinical practice, diagnostic hysteroscopy (DH) videos are recorded in full which are stored in long-term video libraries for later inspection of previous diagnosis, research and training, and as an evidence for patients’ complaints. However, a limited number of frames are required for actual diagnosis, which can be extracted using video summarization (VS). Unfortunately, the general-purpose VS methods are not much effective for DH videos due to their significant level of similarity in terms of color and texture, unedited contents, and lack of shot boundaries. Therefore, in this paper, we investigate visual saliency models for effective abstraction of DH videos by extracting the diagnostically important frames. The objective of this study is to analyze the performance of various visual saliency models with consideration of domain knowledge and nominate the best saliency model for DH video summarization in healthcare systems. Our experimental results indicate that a hybrid saliency model, comprising of motion, contrast, texture, and curvature saliency, is the more suitable saliency model for summarization of DH videos in terms of extracted keyframes and accuracy.

A Novel Image Steganographic Approach for Hiding Text in Color Images using HSI Color Model

2 Abstract: Image Steganography is the process of embedding text in images such that its existence cannot be detected by Human Visual System (HVS) and is known only to sender and receiver. This paper presents a novel approach for image steganography using Hue-Saturation-Intensity (HSI) color space based on Least Significant Bit (LSB). The proposed method transforms the image from RGB color space to Hue-Saturation-Intensity (HSI) color space and then embeds secret data inside the Intensity Plane (I-Plane) and transforms it back to RGB color model after embedding. The said technique is evaluated by both subjective and Objective Analysis. Experimentally it is found that the proposed method have larger Peak Signal-to Noise Ratio (PSNR) values, good imperceptibility and multiple security levels which shows its superiority as compared to several existing methods.

Identification of Alcoholism Based on Wavelet Renyi Entropy and Three-Segment Encoded Jaya Algorithm

The alcohol use disorder (AUD) is an important brain disease, which could cause the damage and alteration of brain structure. The current diagnosis of AUD is mainly done manually by radiologists. This study proposes a novel computer-vision-based method for automatic detection of AUD based on wavelet Renyi entropy and three-segment encoded Jaya algorithm from MRI scans. The wavelet Renyi entropy is proposed to provide multiresolution and multiscale analysis of features, describe the complexity of the brain structure, and extract the distinctive features. Grid search method was used to select the optimal wavelet decomposition level and Renyi order. The classifier was constructed based on feedforward neural network and a three-segment encoded (TSE) Jaya algorithm providing parameter-free training of the weights, biases, and number of hidden neurons. We have conducted the experimental evaluation on 235 subjects (114 are AUDs and 121 healthy). -fold cross validation has been used to avoid overfitting and report out-of-sample errors. The results showed that the proposed method outperforms four state-of-the-art approaches in terms of accuracy. The proposed TSE-Jaya provides a better performance, compared to the conventional approaches including plain Jaya, multiobjective genetic algorithm, particle swarm optimization, bee colony optimization, modified ant colony system, and real-coded biogeography-based optimization.