A Secure Steganographic Channel Using DNA Sequence Data and a Bio-Inspired XOR Cipher

Secure communication is becoming an urgent need in a digital world where tera bytes of sensitive information are sent back and forth over public networks. In this paper, we combine the power of both encryption and Steganography to build a secure channel of communication between two parties. The prop...

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Main Author: Amal Khalifa
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: MDPI AG 2021-06-01
Series:Information
Subjects:
Online Access:https://www.mdpi.com/2078-2489/12/6/253
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author Amal Khalifa
author_facet Amal Khalifa
author_sort Amal Khalifa
collection DOAJ
description Secure communication is becoming an urgent need in a digital world where tera bytes of sensitive information are sent back and forth over public networks. In this paper, we combine the power of both encryption and Steganography to build a secure channel of communication between two parties. The proposed method uses DNA sequence data as a cover to hide the secret message. The hiding process is performed in phases that start with a complementary substitution operation followed by a random insertion process. Furthermore, and before the hiding process takes place, the message is encrypted to secure its contents. Here, we propose an XOR cipher that is also based on how DNA data is digitally represented and stored. A fixed-size header is embedded right before the message itself to facilitate the blind extraction process. The experimental results showed an outstanding performance of the proposed technique, in comparison with other methods, in terms of capacity, security, as well as blind extraction.
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spelling doaj.art-1f11d4a398ee45a690887c5c629cbd502023-11-22T00:41:08ZengMDPI AGInformation2078-24892021-06-0112625310.3390/info12060253A Secure Steganographic Channel Using DNA Sequence Data and a Bio-Inspired XOR CipherAmal Khalifa0Computer Science Department, Purdue University Fort Wayne, Fort Wayne, IN 46805, USASecure communication is becoming an urgent need in a digital world where tera bytes of sensitive information are sent back and forth over public networks. In this paper, we combine the power of both encryption and Steganography to build a secure channel of communication between two parties. The proposed method uses DNA sequence data as a cover to hide the secret message. The hiding process is performed in phases that start with a complementary substitution operation followed by a random insertion process. Furthermore, and before the hiding process takes place, the message is encrypted to secure its contents. Here, we propose an XOR cipher that is also based on how DNA data is digitally represented and stored. A fixed-size header is embedded right before the message itself to facilitate the blind extraction process. The experimental results showed an outstanding performance of the proposed technique, in comparison with other methods, in terms of capacity, security, as well as blind extraction.https://www.mdpi.com/2078-2489/12/6/253information hidingDNA sequence dataencryptionXOR cipherblind extractionmulti-nominal model
spellingShingle Amal Khalifa
A Secure Steganographic Channel Using DNA Sequence Data and a Bio-Inspired XOR Cipher
Information
information hiding
DNA sequence data
encryption
XOR cipher
blind extraction
multi-nominal model
title A Secure Steganographic Channel Using DNA Sequence Data and a Bio-Inspired XOR Cipher
title_full A Secure Steganographic Channel Using DNA Sequence Data and a Bio-Inspired XOR Cipher
title_fullStr A Secure Steganographic Channel Using DNA Sequence Data and a Bio-Inspired XOR Cipher
title_full_unstemmed A Secure Steganographic Channel Using DNA Sequence Data and a Bio-Inspired XOR Cipher
title_short A Secure Steganographic Channel Using DNA Sequence Data and a Bio-Inspired XOR Cipher
title_sort secure steganographic channel using dna sequence data and a bio inspired xor cipher
topic information hiding
DNA sequence data
encryption
XOR cipher
blind extraction
multi-nominal model
url https://www.mdpi.com/2078-2489/12/6/253
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