Tag: free steganography software

Hide data inside sound files with DeepSound

DeepSound is a steganography tool to hide any kind of data, from text to photos, inside sound files, for extra security everything can be encrypted using AES256-bit and only available with the correct password, the modified audio file will play as normal and nobody should notice it contains hidden data inside. The program interface is very simple, it comes with a file browser to manually peruse the directory where a suitable carrier sound file can be found, when password protecting the data you will not be asked to confirm the black dot covered password twice, if you make a typo you will not notice it until it is too late, it will be best if you test the file after creating it to make sure everything works as expected.

Encoding or extracting data can be quickly executed using shortcuts, the program settings allow you to graduate output quality ratio from low to high. If you are going to create an audio CD with hidden data the developer advises to disable volume normalization in the CD burning software to prevent data corruption that would stop hidden files recovery, a one page help manual with screenshots is included, you are not likely to have to read it.

DeepSound hides data inside audio files

This tool can only hide data inside Waveform Audio File Format .wav and Free Lossless Audio Codec .flac sound files, these are not very common files, .wav is normally uncompressed, perfect to hide files inside, but the files are very large and not usually used for music, only small sounds.

FLAC is a royalty free open source alternative to proprietary .mp3, .flac files are compressed and suitable for music albums, supporting metadata and album covert art, if you are going to hide data it will probably look less suspicious inside a .flac than the inadequate .wav file format, and it will be easier to distribute a .flac file given its smaller size. This application could also be used to watermark copyrighted music and track down the source if it is later found leaked in file sharing networks, but converting the file audio format to something else would get rid of the hidden watermark.

Visit DeepSound homepage

16 February, 2013
Steganogaphy and hidden watermarks with OpenPuff

OpenPuff is a portable steganography tool supporting images, audio, video and Flash Adobe animation carrier files, it can conceal up to 256MB of data splitting files in between multiple carriers. Before hiding data everything is securely encrypted with AES, scrambled, whitened and encoded, this reduces the chances of anything hidden being detected by specialist tools, you must always remember to erase the original carrier files. If a computer forensics expert has access to both files and can compare them he should be able to prove that one of them contains hidden data even if it can not extracted because everything inside the has been encrypted. OpenPuff has sixteen different encryption algorithms you can use, this makes extracting data even more difficult as only the creator will know what cipher has been used, the tool supports well known secure algorithms like AES, Serpent and Twofish and more obscure ones, like Mars, Anubis or Clefia, a high speed block cipher developed by Sony Corporation intended for use in Digital Rights Management.

To stop steganalysis, the detection of hidden data, encrypted files are scrambled with a second layer using a pseudo random number generator (CSPRNG) seeded with a user chosen password with data shuffled using random indexes, a third security layer whitens scrambled data adding a high amount of ramdom noise with hardware entropy and the final fourth security layer encodes whitened data using a non-linear function. Very paranoid types can add a decoy file for deniable steganography, just like Truecrypt hidden container works, in OpenPuff you can reveal a password to an innocuous text and keep the real hidden message from view with a second password. Another feature is the ability to hide a mark inside a video, audio or photograph, useful for when you privately distribute a confidential file to a selected group of people, if the file is later on found leaked on the internet you can check the mark and track down the leak source.

OpenPuff steganography freeware

The software interface is a little overwhelming for the steganography novice and drag and drop doesn’t work, you have to select everything manually, but security experts should appreciate things like a window with bit selection options showing a huge list of supported carrier files and the ideal data percentage that can be hidden in each different extension to avoid detection, with a third optional password seeding the scrambling CSPRNG, you can use up to three passwords to hide data inside a file, the other end will have to know all of them to decrypt it.

Thanks to the support for a wide range of carrier files (.bmp, .jpg, .png, .mp3, .vob, .mp4, .3gp, .flv, .swf, .pdf, etc) the program makes it easy to embed hidden data anywhere on the Internet, from a blog to a photo sharing site like Flickr, saving you from having to personally contact a source, which could compromise his identity, but if you are hiding data in multiple files to decrypt them the other end will have to order the files in the right sequence. OpenPuff needs a little practise to get everything right but it is one of the most complete steganography tools I have seen and it has some unique features.

Visit OpenPuff homepage

10 February, 2013
Hide text and photos inside sound files with CipherTune

CipherTune is a tool for Mac and Windows to hide text and photos inside .midi sound files using the encryption algorithm Blowfish 256bit. There is no need to install this software, it runs in portable mode, the program is divided into tabs and everything is intuitive, only the drop down camouflage menu is different from anything you have seen before, when you choose to encrypt a file the methods you are given are made of music instruments like “Chorused Piano“, “Harpsichord” or “Electric Grand Piano“, you can adjust the Tempo and choose if the resulting sound file has to be in stereo or mono.

By producing a container sound file the software saves you time by not having to look for an appropriate .midi song with the right size that can be used to hide information inside but it also limits the choice of cover stories you can have for owning that sound.

Steganography and encryption CipherTune

The software includes an audio player to listen to the sound file after you click on “Make Encryption Tune” before saving it. I opened one of these .midi steganographic files with Notepad and everything appeared to be encrypted and non readable expect by the words “Text to CipherTune by Kenji Kojima“, this gives away that the file was created using a steganography tool that can embed hidden messages and photos inside, this is clearly not software that you should rely on for secure cover communications, to start with .midi files are not as common as .mp3 and they could attract some attention if there is no valid reason to have them, and then there is the embedded text telling observers what program was used to create the sound file.

This is a very original program, let’s hope security can be improved a bit more by erasing those lines in the header sound file revealing that steganography is present.

Visit CipherTune homepage

28 January, 2013
Steganography and encryption with StegHide UI

StegHide UI is a GUI interface for Steghide, an open source steganography program to encrypt and hide data inside images (.jpeg, .bmp) and audio files (.wav, .au), it allows users to do everything Stegide can do with a point and click mouse saving you the command line learning curve. There is a tab where you can use this steganography tool in command line mode were you to feel inclined to do so, StegHide UI offers you the best of both worlds, a GUI and command line all in one program.

There is no need for installation, administrator rights are only needed to change the program settings. You can change the default encryption method, an already secure AES128-bit in CBC mode, set the default output folder or change the command line background colour, font and font colour. The only included help manual consists of the command line tab where you can type “help” and get a list of possible commands. GUI operation is fairly easy, to hide and encrypt files go to the “Embed” tab, select the carrier image or sound where to hide the data and the file you would like to hide, enter a password and choose the encryption algorithm and method using a drop down menu.

Steganography and encryption StegHide UI

To decrypt an steganographic message reverse the process using the “Extract” tab, enter the password and choose the output file with resulting extension, you will need to know what type of file is hidden (.txt, .mp3, .jpg, etc) to get the extension right and be able to view it with the correct program. There is a wide range of encryption algorithms available, the safest are AES Rijndael 128/192/256, Blowfish, TripeDES, Twofish and Serpent, other low strength ciphers like Enigma, Gost, CAST128/256 and Arcfour are included too.

If you would like to defeat steganalysis, the art of detecting hidden data inside files, make sure to securely erase the original file, comparing two files side by side and looking at their differences it is possible to see that data has been embedded in one of them making the extraction easier for an attacker, but encryption with a strong password should still stop adversaries.

Visit StegHide UI homepage

24 August, 2012
Steganography software Cipher Image hides text in pictures

Cipher Image let’s you hide plain text inside photos, a process known as steganography, it can hide messages of up to 64Kb in size, quite a few pages of information, the text has to be typed into the program, Cipher Image can not hide attached files. The data is hidden by replacing image pixels that are similar to each other making it unnoticeable to the human eye, the messages are encrypted using 128-bit, there is no mention of the algorithm used for this, images can be saved in 7 different file formats (jpeg, Gif, Tiff, Paintbrush, Windows Bitmap and OS/2 Bitmap), the included password generator can produce a random pass, it is not configurable and I did not find it useful as it will be impossible to remember whichever pass it produces, there is the option of saving the password in a .txt file but I would not advise it if the data is important.

Cipher Image steganography software

You will get tooltips with instructions when you hoover your mouse over the buttons, make sure to read them as the interface is not very intuitive it is easy to get lost, I would classify this tool as an adequate steganography program for low security stuff, mainly because it is not open source, the developers are not well known and the password generator is quite lousy, my only concern was encryption about which there is little information other than to say it uses 128bit, but people really won’t be able to spot any hidden text and that is what steganography is about, ideal to deliver secret messages using your Flickr or Picasa account, if you haven’t got any security agency going after you this program will get the covert communications job done.

Visit Cipher Image homepage

6 January, 2012
Hide data inside JPEG images using SteganPEG

With SteganPEG you can hide files inside JPEG images without altering them to the human eye, being JPEG one of the most common file formats that exist that will reduce suspicions when you upload it to a website, facilitating covert communications, flickr is an example of a website that can be used to share secret stego messages embedded in pictures with nobody noticing.

You can password protect your files, even if someone analyses the image they will still need to know the passphrase to see the data although there is no mention of encryption being used to cipher the file, this is still better than nothing and enough for low security needs, another nifty feature of this open source stego software is that it shows you how much space remains available on a picture to hide data inside it.

The hidden data you insert inside the JPEG is compressed first, you can hide any kind of file, text, images inside images or executables but the bigger the file the more difficult it will be to fit in inside the JPEG.

This steganography software only supports DCT based Baseline Sequential JPEG images, the most widely used JPEG compression, when you download SteganPEG you also get the source code and can look at or modify it at your own discretion.

SteganPEG open source steganography

Steganography vs. Cryptography

While cryptography ciphers your data and makes it available to only those with the right passphrase, steganography hides your confidential files making it impossible for someone to investigate and try to extract something whose existence is not obvious.

Steganography does not use cryptography per se, it uses the spare bits that files have and use them up to hide data inside them, it is possible to detect and extract that data with specialist steganography detection tools that is why high security steganography software will also include encryption.

For those living under oppressive regimes and subjected to strict communications monitoring, and those living in places where they must hand over their encryption password to the authorities to avoid punishment, steganography is the ideal covert communication method, it has long been used by spies from worldwide agencies, Russian spies in the US in 2010 used steganography software to post photos on the Internet with embedded messages hidden in them.

Get SteganPEG from Softpedia

13 February, 2011
Review free steganography software SilentEye

Steganography, is the science of concealing information in such a way that the existence of the message will only be known to the sender and the recipient, anyone else looking at the message recipient will not suspect there is something hidden inside or it has a meaning, this kind of covert communication is also known as security through obscurity.

Covert communications using Steganography can be traced back to 440 BC when Histiaeus shaved the head of one of his most trusted messengers and and tattooed a message on it, waiting for his hair to grow back before sending him off to deliver the message.

Computer software implementing steganography, aka stego, often uses encryption as a double safety net so that if the hidden message is ever discovered the opponent will still need a password to decrypt it.

SilentEye steganography review

This crossplatform open source free steganography software available for Windows, Mac and Linux offers a very simple and easy to use interface, SilentEye can hide messages or files inside images or sound files, at the moment restricted to .bmp images and .wav sound files but the developers plan to support data hiding inside .jpg and .mp3 files in their next release.

It is important to understand that the data you hide inside a file must be considerable smaller than the innocuous carrier, there is no perfect science to know the proportion of data that can be hidden inside a carrier, many factors come to play like data compression efficiency.

I normally hide files that take 10% of the space of the carrier file at most, after extensively using steganography to hide text messages inside images, 10% is what I have found to be the size closer to the limit allowed, you need not to worry about attempting to hide a file too big inside the carrier as the stego software will warn you of this and you will not be able to carry out the operation until the data you want to hide is reduced or you choose a bigger carrier file.

SilentEye allows you to use drag and drop to encode and decode data, the encoding window allows you to choose encoding format, output image’s quality, pixel colours used and other settings. You can type your secret message directly into the program prior to hiding it inside the file or have a .txt or any other file ready and merge it directly with the covert file.

Besides the pretty interface this free steganographic software has a plug-in system to integrate new cryptographic algorithms, sound AES encryption being already available at present time and you can encrypt your data before hiding it.

SilentEye free Steganography software

Conclusion open source stego SilentEye

You can find more advanced steganographic software but few of them are as easy to use as SilentEye is, the best part of this free stego tool is that it is open source and it allows anyone with coding knowledge to write plugins for it. Source code is also available for download and you can compile SilentEye yourself.

I do not think that hiding messages in .bmp and .wav files is good enough as these files are normally huge in size and very little used nowadays and it would suspicious for people to exchange songs as a .wav

Once the developers release their planned plugins to hide data inside .jpg and .mp3 files, SilentEye will be one of the best and easier to use steganographic tools for people who want to get the job done with a point and click mouse, totally suitable for newbies with little computer knowledge.

Visit SilentEye homepage

12 December, 2010