International Journal of Electrical and Computer Engineering (IJECE) Vol. 9, No. 1, February 2019, pp. 460~467 ISSN: 2088-8708, DOI: 10.11591/ijece.v9i1.pp460-467  460 Journal homepage: http://iaescore.com/journals/index.php/IJECE A secure image steganography based on burrows wheeler transform and dynamic bit embedding Ahmed Toman Thahab Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, University of Kerbala, Iraq Article Info ABSTRACT Article history: Received Jan 11, 2018 Revised Oct 10, 2018 Accepted Oct 27, 2018 In modern public communication networks, digital data is massively transmitted through the internet with a high risk of data piracy. Steganography is a technique used to transmit data without arousing suspicion of secret data existence. In this paper, a color image steganography technique is proposed in spatial domain. The cover image is segmented into non-overlapping blocks which are scattered among image size window using Burrows Wheeler transform before embedding. Secret data is embedded in each block according to its sequence in the Burrows Wheeler transform output. The hiding method is an operation of an exclusive-or between a virtual bit which is generated from the most significant bit and the least significant bits of the cover pixel. Results of the algorithm are analyzed according to its degradation of the output image and embedding capacity. The results are also compared with other existing methods. Keywords: Burrows wheeler transform dynamic embedding Data security Payload XOR Copyright © 2019 Institute of Advanced Engineering and Science. All rights reserved. Corresponding Author: Ahmed T.Thahab, Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, University of Kerbala. 104 Al-Mwathafeen Road, Kerbala Province, Iraq. Email: toeahmed@gmail.com 1. INTRODUCTION A technique that conceals secret information inside another variety of information data is termed as steganography [1]. It is broadly used nowadays in information security strategies over the last decade since this kind of invisible communication prevents imperrmissible access to secret information [1]. Although other data security strategies such as cryptography and encryption techniques exist for secure data transmission, steganography uses files such as audio, image, video formats to transmit data oblivious to the fact that data exits in the message [1]. Watermarking is also considered as a hiding technique, but it is used to protect copyright of content such as small tags or company logos. Steganography conceals greater payload in cover media [2]. Essentially, any stenographic system consists of three major components: The cover file where information is hidden; the secret file and the stego-file which is considered as the output resultant from the system. When embedding secret message data in a cover media, it ought to be visually undetectable and the output stego-file should not possess any noticeable adaptation compared to the original cover image [3]. Imperceptibility is crucial factor when it comes to steganography techniques; it reflects the level of correlation between the stego and the cover file. Moreover; other factors such as security and capacity are also considered decisive factors for steganography algorithm. Steganography has been under the scope of researcher for some time since; it is a vital field for covert communication. Secret information can be embedded in the spatial domain specifically in the pixel intensity value [4]. A pioneering embedding method used in steganography is the least significant bit technique (LSB). This technique utilizes the least significant bits of a code-word and replaces them with the most significant bits of the secret binary data. In [5], a new LSB technique is proposed using differencing.