International Journal of Emerging Technology and Advanced Engineering Website: www.ijetae.com (ISSN 2250-2459, ISO 9001:2008 Certified Journal, Volume 4, Issue 6, June 2014) 373 A Survey on Time Efficient and Secure Data Hiding Algorithm Shriya Pandey 1 , Manish Shrivastava 2 1,2 Department of Information Technology, LNCT, Bhopal, M.P.,India Abstract— Cryptography is the process of securing information; it ensures that the information is only understood by authenticated persons. Steganography is the process of exchanging secret information in such a way that nobody else can detect the presence of that secret message. To achieve high security, steganography process is combined with cryptographic encryption decryption algorithm such that if any one detect the presence of secret information still it is not understandable. In this paper, authors have studied and implemented many such algorithms and presenting experimental results of overall observation of these algorithms. Keywords— Computer Security, Steganography, MSA Algorithm, Encryption Decryption Algorithm. I. INTRODUCTION Information security keeps most importance in today’s fast developing era. Various networks are used to exchange the information, which may be secure or not. With the rapid growth of computer networks and advancement in technology, a large amount of information is being exchanged. Much of this information is confidential or private which increases the demand for stronger encryption techniques. Security has become a critical feature for endowed networks. Communication is not safe due to the presence of hackers who wait for a chance to gain access to confidential data. Cryptography is derived from the Greek words “kryptos” (meaning “hidden”) and “graphein” (meaning “to write”). Cryptography is the study of shuffling information from in such a way that no one can understand the original meaning of message without knowing the secret key which make it again original text. The process of converting information (plain text) by transforming it into unreadable format (cipher text) is known as encryption. Encryption techniques can be sometimes broken by cryptanalysis, also called as code breaking, although modern cryptographic techniques are virtually unbreakable. Cryptography encrypts the original message that is being sent. This mechanism employs mathematical schemes and algorithms to scramble data into unreadable text. It can only be decoded or decrypted by the party that possesses the associated key [5]. Steganography is derived from the Greek word “stegnos” (meaning “covered/secret”) and “graphein” (meaning “to write/draw”) [2]. Steganography is the study of means of hiding the information in order to prevent hackers from detecting the presence of the secret information. The process of hiding the message in a cover without leaving a remarkable trace is known as Steganography. Steganography is the form of convert communication in which a secret message is hided with a carrier data. Steganography facade the presence of communication, making the true message not observable to the observer. Cryptography and Steganography achieve the same goal using different means. Encryption encodes the data so that an unintended recipient cannot determine its intended meaning. Steganography in contrast attempts to prevent an unintended recipient from suspecting that the data is there [3]. The authors studied both the algorithms and studied the techniques that use both the algorithm to provide high degree of security and also compare the result on the basis of timing and avalanche effect. II. LITRATURE SURVEY Nearly everyone these days in steganographic systems uses image as cover object, Authors have investigated many such algorithms, many techniques have been proposed to conceal the secret data behind the cover image without leaving any mark. As described by Neil Johnson and sushil Jagodia [4], least significant bit (LSB) incorporation is an ordinary, straightforward and uncomplicated approach to implant secret data in a cover object. To hide the secret data with image as a covering file, LSB bit of a pixel is substituted with the message bit. In a 24-bit image cover file, each pixel is made of three colours (R, G, and B) and each colour is of 8 bit. Each pixel is modified by 3 bits of message by modifying LSB of each colour with the message bit. To the human eye, the resulting stego image will look indistinguishable to the cover image. Rishav Ray, Jeeyan Sanyal, Debanjan Das, Asoke Nath [1] used a text file/MS word file as a cover file to hide the secret data. To increase the degree of security authors have first encrypted the secret data by using Modified Generalized Vernam Cipher Method (MGVCM) and then hide the encrypted text behind the text file. Authors proposed two new algorithms one is Encryption and Decryption Algorithm and second algorithm explained the method to hide the secret message behind the text file.