PSO-based steganography scheme using DWT-SVD and cryptography techniques for cloud data confidentiality and integrity

Cloud computing is a model of providing services on the Internet, such as software, hardware, networking, and storage. These services can be accessed on a pay-per-use basis from anywhere at any time. However, data security in cloud computing has become a very important issue. One of the main worries of data security involves the cloud service provider, which has the capability to access sensitive data, and this in turn increases users concerns and decreases capability of cloud computing in many areas. This paper focuses on this significant affair and proposes an effective model to protect sensitive data in the cloud in order for cloud service providers do not have direct access to data. This paper puts forward a new method of combining steganography and cryptography techniques. The proposed method utilised Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO)-based steganography scheme using Discrete Wavelet Transform (DWT)- Singular Value Decomposition (SVD). The main components of the secret image are inserted into the host image. Then, the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) encryption technique is employed to encrypt the stego image to guarantee data confidentiality. In addition, Data integrity is likewise achieved by utilising a secure hash algorithm 2 (SHA-2) by generating the hash value for the encrypted image before the encrypted image is saved in the cloud. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed method performed well with more robustness, confidentiality, integrity, and high security. © 2019 Computer Society of the Republic of China. All rights reserved.