Data Hiding Using Quotient Value Differencing and Remainder Value Substitution Avoiding Incorrect Extraction Problem

Steganography approaches designed using quotient value differencing (QVD) and least significant bit substitution provides better hiding capacity (HC) as compared to the steganography approaches designed using pixel value differencing (PVD). Some QVD steganography techniques suffer from fall off boundary problem (FOBP), and incorrect extraction problem (IEP). This research article proposes a steganography approach based on QVD and remainder value substitution (RVS). It addresses FOBP and IEP. It performs data hiding and retrieval on 1 × 3 pixel blocks. Three adjacent pixels are viewed as a block. From these pixel values, quotient values are created by quotient division, and remainder values are created by remainder division. Thus, we get 3 quotients and 3 remainders. To conceal data in remainders we apply RVS and to camouflage data in quotients we apply QVD. After applying QVD, appropriate adjustments are carried out to circumvent IEP and FOBP. The efficacy of this proposed approach is evaluated by peak signal-to-noise ratio (PSNR), HC, quality index (QI), and bits per byte (BPB). The recorded PSNR value is 33.59 dB and HC is 3.92 BPB. Furthermore, it is also observed that steganalysis tests are not capable of detecting this steganography technique.