Steganography Tools

Note: Many important Forensics tools also apply to cryptography (especially steganography) challenges. If you’re stuck, check the Forensics Tools page.

Extracting data from all files

These are described more thoroughly in Forensics Tools page.

• Binwalk
• Foremost
• Exiftool
• Exiv2
• File
• Strings
• cmp (Comparison)

Online Steganography Tools

• TinEye
  • Reverse Image Search online.
• StegOnline
  • Online Steg Decoder
• FotoForensics
  • Supported formats: JPEG, PNG, WebP, HEIC, and AVIF.
  • The “Hidden Pixels” analysis option is particularly useful.
• Stegano
  • Supported formats: JPEG, WAV, AU.
  • Steghide online
• Online Exiftool
  • Online file metadata extraction
• inlite
  • QR Code, Barcode, Data Matrix, Driver License reader
• Image to Binary Converter (dcode)
  • dCode tool that’s potentially useful for stego in QR codes
• Image Error Level Analyser
  • Identify manipulations to compressed (JPEG) images by detecting distribution of error introduced after resaving the image at a specific compression rate.
• Magic Eye Solver/Viewer
  • View hidden image (magic eye)
  • includes slider to move towards/away from the magic eye.
• Twitter Secret Messages
  • Hide/extract secret messages in tweets (or any text) with steg-of-the-dump.js.
• Hidden data in spaces

Command Line Stego Tools

• Identify
  • Describes format and characteristics of one or more image files.
  • Reports if an image is incomplete or corrupt.
  • Member of the imagemagick suite of tools.
• Steghide
  • Supported formats: JPEG, BMP, WAV, AU
• stegoVeritas (described below)
• Zsteg
  • Supported formats: PNG, BMP
  • Detect stegano-hidden data in PNG and BMP.
  • Useful commands:
    • zsteg -a file Runs every detection method on the given file.
    • zsteg -E payload file Extracts data with the given payload (example” b4,bgr,msb,xy”)
• Stegpy
  • Supported formats: PNG, BMP, GIF, WebP, WAV
  • Encoding information in image, audio files.
• Pngcheck
  • Get details on a PNG file (or find out if it’s actually something else).

stegoVeritas

stegoVeritas is “yet another Stego tool”.

• Supported formats: JPG, PNG, GIF, TIFF, BMP
• Will attempt to run on any file.

Usage:

stegoveritas [optional args] file

(Some of the) useful image options:

• -bruteLSB to attempt to brute force any LSB related steganography.
• -meta to check file for metadata information
• -extractLSB to extract a specific LSB RGB from the image.
  • Use with -red, -green, -blue, and -alpha.
• -trailing to check for trailing data on the given file.
• -steghide to check for StegHide hidden info.

Multi options:

• -exif to check this file for exif information.
• -xmp to check this file for xmp information.
• -carve to attempt to carve/extract things from this file.

Fast Fouier Transform (FFT) Steganography Tools

• Imaging Web Demo - FFT Tool
  • Online FFT Tool
• Ejectamenta
  • Online FFT Tool
• FFTStegPic
  • Python script for digital image stego with FFT.
• opencv-python
  • Find hidden content using Fast Fourier Transform (FFT).

Audio and Video Steganography Tools

• Sonic Visualizer
  • Visualization, analysis, and annotation of music audio recordings.
  • If you’re stuck, always check the spectrogram of the audio.
• Sonic Lineup
  • Rapid visualisation of multiple audio files containing versions of the same source material. Part of the Sonic Visualizer family of applications.
• Sonic Annotator
  • Batch tool for feature extraction and annotation of audio files using Vamp plugins. Part of the Sonic Visualizer family of applications.
• Detect DTMF Tones (file upload)
• Detect DTMF Tones (demo)
• Wavsteg
  • Supported formats: WAV
  • Useful command: Extracts to an ouput file (taking only 1 lsb)

    python3 WavSteg.py -r -b 1 -s soundfile -o outputfile
    

  • Useful command: Extracts to an ouput file (taking only 2 lsb)

    python3 WavSteg.py -r -b 2 -s soundfile -o outputfile
    

• ffmpeg
  • Universal media converter. Check integrity of audio files.

    ffmpeg -v info -i stego.mp3 -f null -
    

• Deepsound
  • Hide and check for information encrypted with AES-265 in sound files.
  • If DeepSound finds any data hidden, you’ll need to provide the password to unlock it.
• Online Audio Spectrum Analyzer

Software for Steganography

• Gimp
  • “GNU Image Manipulation Program,” raster graphics editor used for image manipulation and editing, transcoding between image file formats, etc.
• Stegsolve
  • Analyze images in different planes by taking bits off the image.
  • Installation:

    wget https://github.com/eugenekolo/sec-tools/raw/master/stego/stegsolve/stegsolve/stegsolve.jar
    

  • Usage:

    java -jar stegsolve.jar
    

• Imagemagick
  • Supported formats: JPEG, PNG, GIF, TIFF, PDF,
  • Used for editing and manipulating digital images.
  • Can be used to create, edit, compose, or convert bitmap images.

Misc. and Other Steganography Resources

• stego-toolkit
  • Docker image useful for solving CTF Steganography challenges. Includes nice descriptions of all the tools included.
• Steganography Tools List
  • List of useful tools and resources for steganography. Includes brief description of each.
• Steganography Playbook
  • List of steps to take and tools to use, given different file types.

Steganography Encryption Tools and Tutorials

Understanding the process of hiding information makes locating and extract information much easier.

• How to Hide Files Inside Images in Linux (article)
• How to Create Steganography Challenges

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