An Adaptive LSB-Based Video Steganography Framework with Blockchain-Enabled Verification for Secure Multimedia Communication
Received: 5 November 2025 | Revised: 20 December 2025 and 10 January 2026 | Accepted: 12 January 2026 | Online: 4 March 2026
Corresponding author: S. G. Shaila
Abstract
Digital communication systems face an ongoing major challenge to protect video information from unauthorized access, tampering, and eavesdropping operations. Standalone steganographic methods face two major drawbacks: restricted data storage capabilities and decreased ability to remain undetectable. This study presents an integrated video security framework that unites adaptive video steganography with hybrid cryptographic encryption and blockchain-enabled verification to protect data confidentiality, robustness, and integrity. The proposed framework consists of three separate modules that work together: StegoVision, Robust Video Steganography with Decoy Extraction, and Blockchain-Enabled Encryption. The StegoVision module uses an adaptive Least-Significant Bit (LSB) based embedding scheme with multi-stage compression to enable high-capacity covert communication. The system uses AES-CBC encryption with Knight's Tour-based adaptive embedding and deception techniques to protect unauthorized extractors from detecting hidden data. The system uses hybrid AES-RSA encryption with IPFS-based decentralized storage to achieve tamper-proof authentication and traceability. The proposed method was tested on the HMDB51 (Human Motion DataBase) benchmark dataset. The StegoVision system achieved 94.1% accuracy through its visual quality preservation during compression and format conversion processes. The decoy-based model achieved 42.6 dB PSNR and 0.981 SSIM during compression and format conversion processes. The blockchain module achieved encryption speeds up to 320 MB/s with near-lossless reconstruction (PSNR > 51.4 dB, SSIM ≈ 0.999) and integrity verification accuracy exceeding 99.9%. A comparative analysis demonstrates that the proposed framework achieves an optimal balance between capacity, imperceptibility, robustness, and verifiability.
Keywords:
video steganography, blockchain, AES–RSA encryption, IPFS, adaptive LSB, knight’s tour embedding, decoy extraction, data securityDownloads
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Copyright (c) 2026 S. G. Sumana, T. M. Rajesh, S. G. Shaila
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