Data Forensic Analysis: Use Of S-Tool For Revealing Hidden Data In Image

Steganography and Data Protection

Discuss about the Forensic Analysis for Steganography Techniques.

Data forensic is a process used in data security to encrypt data so that it cannot be used in normal circumstances by normal users without using specialized software. In this case, an image has been presented for analysis with aim coming up with best tool for analysis as well as analyzing hidden data. When revealing the message, several options were available but the best methodology had to be chosen in order to be able to reveal the data. Ideally, there was no specific procedure to use when selecting the tool. A random selection was done until the best tool was chosen depending on the results obtained. To get the desirable results, S-tool will be used to reveal the hidden data in a more suitable way. This report covers aspects such as basic steganography information, available steganography types, steganography security measures as well as encryption mechanisms used in decrypting given set of data. To reveal the data from the given image, S-tool has been chosen as the best after trying several available tools such as FotoForensics, Ghiro, Stegosuite and Stegdetect (Daryabar & Dehghantanha 2014, p. 185-186). From the analysis of the image, a text file was produced which is a detailed instruction about task 3. To get required results, a series of steps was followed to come up with desirable results. Combination of tools has been used to test availability of the message in the image but only S-tool gave the required results.  

In the analysis of the image, a steganography has been done through use of S-tool. When choosing the best tool, several tools were chosen with aim of testing the best option to work with. It was quite difficult to select the best tool to use because a group of available tools was given and the best tool was to be selected in a random manner. All tools were tried and tested until S-tool proved to be the best one. All the tools to be used were available for use in trial mode or free as this made it possible to make use of them while choosing the best one.   

To open the document, a password was provided with the image so that it is possible to reveal the type of data hidden on the image. The concept of using image to conceal the data involves various steganography steps (Patole et al 2018, p. 256). S-tool makes it easy and simple to get data from given image by just following few steps. The receiver of the data does not need to be an expert in data forensics because the chosen tool is quite simple to use. No data interpretation is required once decryption has been done because S-tool gives decrypted raw data which is readable (Dow et al 2018, p. 898). Generally, S-tool makes it possible to use all types of images to hide data from being used by unauthorized persons while on storage as well as on transit (Qiu et al 2018, p. 422). In this case, steganography has been used to hide data within an image. To conceal the data, steganography makes use of any unused regular computer file such as images, graphics and sound. Available invisible information bits which can be presented as a regular computer file or hidden information is used to conceal the data. Important to note is that, steganography is used to hide availability or existence of data by displaying different version of information such an image that other information users cannot detect. According to Siddiqui, Khan & Ferens (2018, p. 513), at some instances, steganography is used together with encryption with aim of hiding information from being used by others even after it has been deciphered. This method is widely used because there are several image bytes that are unused in any created image. According to Gonzalez-Perez et al (2018, p. 72), unused bytes are not important as they cannot distort image type and can be used to hide any information. Message hiding can take any form such as 8-bit or 24 bit depending on the file format in use.

Analyzing the Image with S-Tool

The analysis of the image done through S-tool was done systematically in order to reveal the content hidden. First, the image was opened by S-tool into a specific folder created on a PC. An evaluation of the S-tool showed that, it makes use of various algorithms to mask the data. To come up with the best algorithm, different algorithms were tried but the Triple DES algorithm worked smartly (Boroumand & Fridrich 2018, p. 823). To show the content, relevant password had to be used in conjunction with image file configuration used to hide the message. Upon validation, a text file was extracted from the image under analysis. The extracted file contained information about the task to be done as assignment 3 of the course work. With use of simple S-tool and few steps provided, it has been possible to extract information required in order to work on task 3. Without using available tools and correct procedure, it would be much difficult to achieve desired results. This shows the power behind steganography as a means of hiding information rather than decrypting because steganography does not even reveal availability of the information (Zhou et al 2018, p. 102).

To facilitate the analysis, an image was provided with a password to be used as a key during steganography process. The analysis of the results shows that, student has to take the role of forensic examiner by working on a real or hypothetical case study. The case involves both data hiding and data mining process using steganography. Similarly, the analysis had to be done through use of specific tool and in this case, S-tool was chosen as the appropriate tool (Cao et al 2018, p. 202). The files involved in the study are; text file which contains task instructions as well as image provided. These files were very important in the entire process because image file give an opportunity to analyze the hidden content. On the same note, the text file is the results of the image analysis which revealed the details of the instructions. This is a clear indication that without findings students would not be able to work on the assignment. Search was done during selection of the suitable tool required for image analysis. Through search, S-tool was chosen as the best tool to use for image analysis (Isaac & Wilscy 2018, .p 1680). Steganography and its available tools dominated the search as it was used to help in coming up with simple tool to facilitate in image analysis. Since it was a simple process that was meant for learning process, it did not involve complex processes such as deleted files or program ownership.

Types of Steganography and Encryption Mechanisms

Moreover, some of the important aspect to note from the analysis of the image is that, message hiding in image types is quite appropriate. It does not reveal the content of information neither does it show any availability of message as it is the case with data encryption. On data encryption, any system user is able to see the file but it is not usable (Azmoodeh, Dehghantanha & Choo 2018, .p 32). Steganography is quite appropriate and can be combined with other data encryption techniques. Since it hides data availability, it has been can be used as an advanced mechanism in data security. Further, with images having different file formats and taking various bits and bytes, it is very secure to protect data through steganography. Every image type provides user with different encoding mechanism which makes it difficult to reveal any message. Before any data can be revealed to any program user, authentication and authorization to access the content is vital (Marquezan et al 2018, p. 1568). This makes protection of message through steganography very useful. In this case, before opening the message from the image, a password was required for authentication purpose. Once the password was provide, the image processing completed displaying the content without any further authorization. Authentication was meant to make sure the message is under control of the authorized user. Finally, it is very clear from the analysis that, all data protection methods works in conjunction to other security measures in order to achieve all data objectives.   

Conclusion

Data protection is a fundamental aspect in all information systems and database management systems. Since data protection is an important aspect, several mechanisms have been adopted for security purpose. These mechanisms include data encryption and steganography. Any of these two mechanisms can be used on its own or a combination of the two can be implemented to secure data while on storage or transit. In this case, steganography has been used to hide availability of message to any unauthorized user. Steganography is a data hiding mechanism that uses several image formats unusable bits and bytes to protect message from other persons. The applicability of steganography has been tested through use of an image containing some information which had to be extracted for use in the class work. An image has been provided and several tools had to be used to reveal availability of the message. Upon analysis of the available tools, S-tool proved to work best. The entire process involved several steps which had to be authenticated by password to access the required content. Authentication in any data access is very important as it proves ownership of the data at any given instance. This can be used as a proof that, information access by specific student in conjunction to this assignment was genuine. Finally, a combination of the several mechanism is important because as steganography hides availability of the content, encryption makes the content unusable to unauthorized persons. 

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