Signature Image Hiding in Color Image using Steganography and Cryptography based on Digital Signature Concepts

Data Transmission in network security is one of the most vital issues in today's communication world. The outcome of the suggested method is outlined over here. Enhanced security can be achieved by this method. The vigorous growth in the field of information communication has made information transmission much easier. But this type of advancement has opened up many possibilities of information being snooped. So, day-by-day maintaining of information security is becoming an inseparable part of computing and communication. In this paper, the authors have explored techniques that blend cryptography & steganography together. In steganography, information is kept hidden behind a cover image. In this paper, approaches for information hiding using both cryptography & steganography is proposed keeping in mind two considerations - size of the encrypted object and degree of security. Here, signature image information is kept hidden into cover image using private key of sender & receiver, which extracts the information from stego image using a public key. This approach can be used for message authentication, message integrity & non-repudiation purpose.