Abstract
This paper presents a novel chaos-based technique of steganography in spatial domain. In the last decade, chaos theory has gained utmost importance in multimedia security applications. Generally, 1-D chaotic maps are employed because of computational ease and structural simplicity but their limited chaotic range is an obstacle. In the proposed work, we model the nonlinear combinations of 1-D chaotic maps. These chaotic systems possess chaotic behavior throughout the domain. We, for the first time, propose an effective application of these improved chaotic systems in steganography. These newly synthesized systems are used to embed secret information in the least significant bits (LSBs) of the host image. By comparing with some recent models, we prove that involving improved chaotic systems in steganographic approach really produces extraordinary outcomes. We determine the strength of our steganographic algorithm through the most significant statistical analyses such as information entropy, correlation, contrast, energy, homogeneity, peak signal to noise ratio (PSNR) and mean square error (MSE). We further prove the robustness of the anticipated technique against several image processing attacks. The upshot of these analysis techniques shows that our algorithm is highly reliable and produces coherent results.