Data Hiding Technique, Essay Example

The internet is home to a large volume of information shared between individuals from all over the world. The internet, however, is also considered as one of the most vital sectors of modern businesses today especially in relation to dealing with international operations. Organizations wanting to extend their operations abroad and practically affect a larger market have used the internet willfully and effectively as they desire to embrace advancement along with growth. It could be noted though that somehow, being involved in the internet for the sake of business purposes do not serve plain advantages only for the organization engaging on the said matter. Considerably, it has become a vital point of engaging in internet operations to make sure that the data posted and kept online are protected from any malicious users who tend to gain advantage through information theft. To respond to this need, data hiding became a serious concern for such business enthusiasts.

What is data hiding? This is basically the electronic process by which existing information within the internet are protected by the website operators. The vast members of the society specifically using the internet entail the need for such type of protection. With this in mind, programmers create particular online software programs that are able to provide encrypting options for website operators to set their data within a location that can only be accessed by authorized individuals only. These encryptions are designed to set a sense of privacy especially if the website belongs to a particular company that holds specifically private information about the clients that they serve through the internet. Such organizations could include financial organizations providing service through their online portal.

One technique of hiding data is through the ADS system. ADS or Alternate Data Streams is a feature that Is supported by NTFS formatted drives (Provos, et al, 2003). Usually, this caters to the new technology file system that is typically found on Windows NT, 2000, and XP platforms. It has a much improved process compared with the FAT-32 file system where in data could be stored separately through a stream of different file folders within the system (Kharrazi,, et al, 2001). With ADS, a user can store files up o 5MB within a 1K size of data location. The 5MB is hidden within a phantom display which makes it easier for the system to display only 1K as is thus avoiding any suspicion from malicious users (Bierbrauer,, et al, 2001). Only the users could actually be able to access the information within the said location through encryption options.

FragFS is another technique that is used in hiding data within a hard drive. Through the option of steganography [or the art of hiding data within another data], FragFS intends to copy the code of a particular data and use that as the name of another file that is being hidden within a particular partition or location in a specific hard drive (Provos, et al, 2003). This is the reason why when it comes to applying investigative computer forensics, agents usually check the hard drives of the computers for existing alternative file streams or particular slack spaces at the end of the files that are posted within the partitions being investigated upon. In this case, expert analysts are best able to contend with the process of investigation rather than simply using forensic tools in the process.

Expert analysts usually find it easier to detect file anomalies through the experiences that they have already been able to establish alongside their responsibilities at work. Notably, when steganography is involved, the use of file carriers is considered common. This is the process by which a signal, a stream or a data file is being hidden within another file serving as the phantom data within another data. These files usually look benign to the one analyzing the content of particular hard drives. Another process is through utilizing a different initialization vector for every carrier used to keep the data within another fraudulent file. The initialization vector process involves the utilization of a different form of cryptography which affects the algorithmic pattern of each file. This will mask out the file being hidden and is presented to have lesser volume that it is expected to have in regularly presented files (Provos, 2004). This way, every data is hidden completely from the obvious compilation of files within a specific drive.

Overall, it could be realized that the process of hiding data due to online protection purposes could be considered vital and legally valid. However, when instances of malice use of the option of data hiding is involved, business owners and organizational administrators should be well guarded. Forensic investigators who have mastered the art of computer forensics could actually help in assuring the process by which each business organization operating online could be protected from malicious users who are aiming to hide data to develop particular anomalies within the system of the organization. This way, the reputation of the company is protected as well as with that of the information they are trying to keep away from anomalous utilization by their own members and by foreign visitors of their company website. Through the existence of cooperative operation between the business owners and the forensic investigators who are experts on computer analytics, then particular problems such as information theft, identity mimicry and financial fraud could actually be avoided accordingly. It is viewed that with the relative enthusiasm on the part of the organizers and administrators to become more adept in observing their website visitors and how these individuals [whether they are from the organization or not] utilize the information of the business posted online, such fraudulent works handled especially when it comes to handling data hiding techniques and how it could make or break the protection of the reputation of the organization especially when they engage in online transactions and business operations.

References:

Kharrazi, Mehdi; Sencar, Husrev T.; Memon, Nasir. (2001).”Performance study of common image steganography and steganalysis techniques”. Journal of Electronic Imaging 15 (4).

Provos, Niels; Honeyman, Peter. (2003)”Hide and Seek: An Introduction to Steganography“. IEEE Security & Privacy (IEEE Computer Society) 1 (3): 32–44.

Provos, Niels. (2004). “Defending against statistical steganalysis”. Proceedings of the 10th conference on USENIX Security Symposium. SSYM’01 (USENIX Association) 10: 24–37.

Bierbrauer, Jürgen; Fridrich, Jessica. (2001). “Constructing good covering codes for applications in Steganography”. Transactions on Data Hiding and Multimedia Security III. Lecture Notes in Computer Science (Springer Berlin Heidelberg).