Steganographic Methods for Embedding and Detecting Hidden Messages Using GIF Images as Container Files

Over the past few decades, the development of new methods of storing, transferring, analyzing, and reproducing data has become increasingly important, considering the widespread development of information technologies and multimedia means. These methods also include means of ensuring the reliability, security, safety, and confidentiality of information when it is transmitted through various communication channels. Today, the fulfillment of the necessary data confidentiality requirements is developing in the direction of cryptography and steganography. The article discusses a method of ensuring data confidentiality by means of Digital Steganography, using GIF images as container files. The features of this method are considered, the main steps of the algorithm are described, and the resulting file is analyzed. The second part of the article studies a method that estimates the probability of hiding information in the blocks of a container file. This method utilizes Pearson’s goodness-of-fit test. A number of test tests of the algorithm have been carried out to check the efficiency of this method. As a result, a computer program has been created using the Microsoft Visual Studio 2019 Community programming environment and the C# programming language (.NET Framework).