Enhanced reversible data hiding using difference expansion and modulus function with selective bit blocks in images

The rapid growth of Information and communication technology not only has positive impacts but also unveils opportunities for data and information security threats. In recent years, many researchers have worked on developing methods to enhance data security, particularly through data hiding techniques aimed at safeguarding communications by concealing their existence. With the same objective in mind, this study introduces a novel method for Reversible Data Hiding (RDH) based on a combination of difference expansion (DE) and a modulus function. Our method enables the embedding of 3-bit data into 2-bit Least Significant Bit (LSB) difference values of pixel pairs formed in rectangular blocks. Based on the experimental results, the payload capacity of our method can reach 0.3953 bpp with a PSNR of 53.5900 dB on common images and 0.5764 bpp with a PSNR of 52.9234 dB on medical images. Our method consistently achieves high payload capacity with good visual quality, and our method surpasses previous approaches in terms of performance, payload capacity, and visual quality. © The Author(s) 2024.