• KSII Transactions on Internet and Information Systems (TIIS)
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• v.15 no.3
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• pp.1078-1099
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• 2021

Traditional image steganography hides secret information by embedding, which inevitably leaves modification traces and is easy to be detected by steganography analysis tools. Since coverless steganography can effectively resist steganalysis, it has become a hotspot in information hiding research recently. Most coverless image steganography (CIS) methods are based on mapping rules, which not only exposes the vulnerability to geometric attacks, but also are less secure due to the revelation of mapping rules. To address the above issues, we introduced camouflage images for steganography instead of directly sending stego-image, which further improves the security performance and information hiding ability of steganography scheme. In particular, based on the different sub-features of stego-image and potential camouflage images, we try to find a larger similarity between them so as to achieve the reversible steganography. Specifically, based on the existing CIS mapping algorithm, we first can establish the correlation between stego-image and secret information and then transmit the camouflage images, which are obtained by reversible sub-feature retrieval algorithm. The received camouflage image can be used to reverse retrieve the stego-image in a public image database. Finally, we can use the same mapping rules to restore secret information. Extensive experimental results demonstrate the better robustness and security of the proposed approach in comparison to state-of-art CIS methods, especially in the robustness of geometric attacks.