Integrating Light-Weight Cryptography with Diacritics Arabic Text Steganography Improved for Practical Security Applications

Malak G. Alkhudaydi; Adnan A. Gutub

doi:10.26735/FMIT1649

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Published 20-12-2020

DOI https://doi.org/10.26735/FMIT1649

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“Integrating Light-Weight Cryptography with Diacritics Arabic Text Steganography Improved for Practical Security Applications”, JISCR, vol. 3, no. 1, pp. 13–30, Dec. 2020, doi: 10.26735/FMIT1649.

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Malak Gorm-Allah Alkhudaydi

Computer Engineering Department, College of Computer and Information Systems, UMM Al-QURA University, Makkah, Saudi Arabia.

Adnan Abdul-Aziz Gutub

Computer Engineering Department, College of Computer and Information Systems, UMM Al-QURA University, Makkah, Saudi Arabia.

http://orcid.org/0000-0003-0923-202X (unauthenticated)

Abstract

Cryptography and steganography are combined to provide practical data security. This paper proposes integrating light-weight cryptography with improved Arabic text steganography for optimizing security applications. It uses light-weight cryptography to cope with current limited device capabilities, to provide acceptable required security. The work tests hiding encrypted secret information within Arabic stego-cover texts, using all common diacritics found naturally in the Arabic language. The study considers different challenging situations and scenarios in order to evaluate security practicality. It further carries out simulations on some short texts from the Holy Quran, taking them as standard authentic texts, that are fixed and trusted, therefore providing realistic study feedback that is worth monitoring. Our improved approach features preferred capacity and security, surpassing the best previous diacritics stego approach, showing interesting potential results for attractive enlightening exploration to come.

Keywords

Arabic Text Steganography, Information Security, Diacritics Steganography, Data encryption, Light-Weight cryptography, Cybercrimes

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Author Biographies

Malak Gorm-Allah Alkhudaydi

Malak Gorm-Allah Alkhudaydi is a graduate student completed Master of Sciences (MS) degree in Computer Sciences & Engineering from Umm Al Qura University (UQU). Her MS program at UQU is specialized in the information security track offered by the College of Computer and Information Systems offered at UQU-Makkah Campus, Saudi Arabia. In 2016, Malak completed her Bachelor of computer Sciences (BS) degree with honors from Taif University Saudi Arabia. Her MS thesis research is entitled: Combining Light-weight Cryptography with Arabic Text Steganography for Higher Security, hoping to complete her research and get the degree within 2020.

Adnan Abdul-Aziz Gutub

Prof. Adnan Abdul-Aziz Gutub is ranked as Full Professor in Computer Engineering specialized in Information and Computer Security within College of Computers and Information Systems at Umm Al-Qura University (UQU). He has been working as the Vice Dean of the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques Institute of the Hajj & Omrah Research, Known publicly as Hajj Research Institute (HRI), within (UQU), Makkah Al-Mukarramah, all Muslims religious Holy City located within the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

Adnan’s academic experience in Computer Engineering was gained from his previous long-time work as Associate Professor, Assistant Professor, Lecturer, and Graduate Assistant, all in Computer Engineering at King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals (KFUPM) in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia. He received his Ph.D. degree (2002) in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Oregon State University, USA. He had his BS in Electrical Engineering and MS in Computer Engineering both from KFUPM, Saudi Arabia.

Adnan's research work can be observed through his 70+ publications (international journals and conferences) as well as his 5 US patents registered officially by USPTO. His main research interests involved optimizing, modeling, simulating, and synthesizing VLSI hardware for crypto and security computer arithmetic operations. He worked on designing efficient integrated circuits for the Montgomery inverse computation in different finite fields. He has some work in modeling architectures for RSA and elliptic curve crypto operations. His interest in computer security also involved steganography focusing on image based steganography and Arabic text steganography. Adnan’sresearch interest in computing and information technology have been broaden to also relate to smart crowd management and intelligent transportation engineering systems because of the involvement in Hajj and OmrahResearch at UQU - Makkah.

In summer 2013, Adnan has been awarded 3-month visiting scholar grant in collaboration with Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana, USA. He had been involved in research of current studies related to Arabic Text Steganography in Data Security as well as Elliptic Curve Crypto Processor Designs. His activities at Purdue was in relation to three main research groups: Distributed Multimedia Systems Laboratory, Center for Education and Research in Information Assurance and Security (CERIAS), Visual Analytics for Command, Control, and Interoperability Environments (VACCIEN). Previously, Adnan have been twice awarded the UK visiting internship for 2 months of summer 2005 and summer 2008, both sponsored by the British Council in Saudi Arabia. The 2005 summer research visit was at Brunel University to collaborate with the Bio-Inspired Intelligent System (BIIS) research group in a project to speed-up a scalable modular inversion hardware architecture. The 2008 visit was at University of Southampton with the Pervasive Systems Centre (PSC) for research related to text steganography and data security.

Administratively, Adnan Gutub filled many executive and managerial academic positions at KFUPM as well as UQU. At KFUPM - Dhahran, he had the experience of chairing the Computer Engineering department (COE) for five years until moving to Makkah in 2010. Then, at UQU - Makkah, Adnan Chaired the Information Systems Department at the College of Computers & Information Systems followed by his leadership of the Center of Research Excellence in Hajj and Omrah (HajjCoRE) serving as HajjCoRE director for around 3-years until the end of 2013. Then, he was assigned his last position (until March 2016) as the Vice Dean of HRI, i.e. the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques Institute of the Hajj & Omrah Research.

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Issue

Vol. 3 No. 1 (2020)

Section

Original Research articles

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