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Steghide advanced usage

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<h2><b>Basic Use</b></h2>
<a href="../index.html">Previous Page</a></br></br><p><img src="../../assets/img/user.png" width="50px" height="50px"> <ba>Zesc - 2024-08-30</ba></p>
<h1>Hiding files in images with steghide</h1> <h1>Hiding files in images with steghide</h1>
<a href="../index.html">Previous Page</a></br></br><p><img src="../../assets/img/user.png" width="50px" height="50px"> <ba>Zesc - 2024-08-30</ba></p>
<h2><b>Basic Use</b></h2>
<p>steghide is a mature GPL-licensed CLI tool for hiding arbitrary data inside of of image files (and some archaic audio formats). Its official web presence is located at <a href="https://steghide.sourceforge.net/">https://steghide.sourceforge.net/</a>, but it is ubiquitously mirrored in various repositories and package managers (<a href="https://github.com/StegHigh/steghide"></a>. If you use APT, simply install it with</p> <p>steghide is a mature GPL-licensed CLI tool for hiding arbitrary data inside of of image files (and some archaic audio formats). Its official web presence is located at <a href="https://steghide.sourceforge.net/">https://steghide.sourceforge.net/</a>, but it is ubiquitously mirrored in various repositories and package managers (<a href="https://github.com/StegHigh/steghide"></a>. If you use APT, simply install it with</p>
<pre><code class="nim"># apt install steghide <pre><code class="nim"># apt install steghide</code></pre>
</code></pre>
<!-- <p>steghide conceals data inside a larger coverfile in a way that is indistinguishable to first-order statistical analysis. This means that without comparing to exact copy of your original coverfile, there are no anomalies to it.</p> --> <!-- <p>steghide conceals data inside a larger coverfile in a way that is indistinguishable to first-order statistical analysis. This means that without comparing to exact copy of your original coverfile, there are no anomalies to it.</p> -->
<p>steghide uses subcommands, and the three most important ones are <code>info</code>, <code>embed</code> and <code>extract</code> which will be explained in sequence. For this tutorial, we are going to use the <a href="https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html">Astronomy Picture of the Day</a> of 2024-09-08, a beautiful image of the Andromeda galaxy:</p> <p>steghide uses subcommands, and the three most important ones are <code class="nim">info</code>, <code class="nim">embed</code> and <code class="nim">extract</code> which will be explained in sequence. For this tutorial, we are going to use the <a href="https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html">Astronomy Picture of the Day</a> of 2024-09-08, a beautiful image of the Andromeda galaxy:</p>
<img src="apod20240924.jpg" style="width:250px"> <div style="text-align: center"><img src="apod20240824.jpg" style="width:250px;"></div>
<p>Our example file to hide is going to be <a href="https://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf">Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System</a>, the original paper by Satoshi Nakamoto.</p> <p>Our example file to hide is going to be <a href="https://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf">Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System</a>, the original paper by Satoshi Nakamoto.</p>
<p>As mentioned above, the cover image must be larger than the file you wish to embed, <b>as a rule of thumb your coverfile should be 20 times larger</b>. We can check how many bytes steghide can embed by using <code>steghide info <i>file</i></code>. In our case, it tells us that it can embed 232 KB and asks whether an attempt should be made at reading embed data without extracting. As there is nothing embedded yet, we decline with <kbd>n</kbd>.</p> <p>As mentioned above, the cover image must be larger than the file you wish to embed, <b>as a rule of thumb your coverfile should be 20 times larger</b>. We can check how many bytes steghide can embed by using <code class="nim">steghide info <i>file</i></code>. In our case, it tells us that it can embed 232 KB and asks whether an attempt should be made at reading embed data without extracting. As there is nothing embedded yet, we decline with <kbd>n</kbd>.</p>
<pre><samp>"apod20240824.jpg": <pre><samp>"apod20240824.jpg":
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Try to get information about embedded data ? (y/n) Try to get information about embedded data ? (y/n)
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<p>The PDF is only 180 KB, so it fits. Next, we use <code>steghide embed -cf <i>coverfile</i> -ef <i>embedfile</i> -sf <i>destination</i></code> and get asked for a passphrase (make sure to remember it or safe it in a password manager). After re-entering the passphrase (you can set it beforehand with the <code>-p</code> option) it will write the processed file to the specified destination. You can also leave out the <code>-sf</code> option, in which case it defaults to overwriting the coverfile. Look at it and try to find a visual difference to the original:</p> <p>The PDF is only 180 KB, so it fits. Next, we use <code class="nim">steghide embed -cf <i>coverfile</i> -ef <i>embedfile</i> -sf <i>destination</i></code> and get asked for a passphrase (make sure to remember it or safe it in a password manager). After re-entering the passphrase (you can set it beforehand with the <code class="nim">-p</code> option) it will write the processed file to the specified destination. You can also leave out the <code class="nim">-sf</code> option, in which case it defaults to overwriting the coverfile. Look at it and try to find a visual difference to the original:</p>
<img src="output1.jpg" style="width:250px"> <div style="text-align: center"><img src="output1.jpg" style="width:250px"></div>
<p>It's completely lost in the visual noise. As an experiment, let's try taking the difference of both images with a program like GIMP. This is what it looks like:</p> <p>It's completely lost in the visual noise. As an experiment, let's try taking the difference of both images with a program like GIMP. This is what it looks like:</p>
<img src="difference.jpg" style="width:250px"> <div style="text-align: center"><img src="difference.jpg" style="width:250px"></div>
<p>A difference of zero means a fully black pixel. Try zooming in and you'll see that only a few pixels are slightly lighter than black. These are the pixels that contain parts of your embedded file.</p> <p>A difference of zero means a fully black pixel. Try zooming in and you'll see that only a few pixels are slightly lighter than black. These are the pixels that contain parts of your embedded file in their least significant bits..</p>
<div><b>WARNING: changing the output file in anyway will make the embedded file irretrievable. This is especially important for every form of lossy compression!</b></div> <div><b>WARNING: changing the output file in anyway will make the embedded file irretrievable. This is especially important for every form of lossy compression!</b></div>
<p>Now let's try to extract the file we've just hid. For this, use <code>steghide embed -sf <i>input</i></code></p>. This will prompt you for the passphrase. Enter it, and the contents will be extracted into the working directory. In our case we will be asked whether we want to overwrite the file with the same name that already exists. (You can suppress this warning with <code>-f</code> or by specifying an alternative output destination with <code>-xf</code>. Here, I used the later so we can confirm the files to be identical with md5sum: <p>Now let's try to extract the file we've just hid. For this, use <code class="nim">steghide embed -sf <i>input</i></code></p>. This will prompt you for the passphrase. Enter it, and the contents will be extracted into the working directory. In our case we will be asked whether we want to overwrite the file with the same name that already exists. (You can suppress this warning with <code class="nim">-f</code> or by specifying an alternative output destination with <code class="nim">-xf</code>. Here, I used the later so we can confirm the files to be identical with md5sum:
<pre><samp>d56d71ecadf2137be09d8b1d35c6c042 bitcoin.pdf <pre><samp>d56d71ecadf2137be09d8b1d35c6c042 bitcoin.pdf
d56d71ecadf2137be09d8b1d35c6c042 output.pdf</samp></pre> d56d71ecadf2137be09d8b1d35c6c042 output.pdf</samp></pre>
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<h2><b>Advanced Use</b></h2> <h2><b>Advanced Use</b></h2>
<h3><b>Changing the encryption</b></h3>
<p>As you've seen, steghide needs a passphrase to embed and extract data. (Note: using an empty passphrase can lead to issues extracting.) This passphrase is used to both encrypt your file before embedding and to seed the PRNG by which it selects pixel positions for embedding data. By default, it uses AES-128. You should not rely on steghide for securing your data cryptographically (see the <a href="../index.html">introduction to steganography</a>), and when in doubt you can separately encrypt the file before embedding, but you may still want to change the used algorithm. For this, simply use <code class="nim">-e <i>algorithm</i> <i>mode</i></code></p>. You can list all available modes with <code class="nim">steghide encinfo</code>. So as example, to embed our previous picture using AES-256 in cipher feedback mode, you would use this:
<pre><code class="nim">$ steghide embed -cf apod20240824.jpg -ef bitcoin.pdf -e rijandael-256 cfb </code></pre>
<h3><b>Use steghide recursively</b></h3>
<p>Since steghide works on arbitrary binary data, you can embed steghide's output into another picture, provided the size is sufficient. The 4.8 MB picture below contains a 260 KB waveform audio file which in turns contains 2.7 KB UTF-8 encoded text file. (The passphrase is <kbd>moon</kbd> for both.)</p>
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<h2><b>Setup</b></h2> </br> </br>
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