Simple Steganography: Hiding Files in Images

Steganography is the art and science of hiding information in ways that prevent the detection of hidden messages. Steganography literally means “covered writing” and is usually interpreted to mean hiding information in other information. Comparing it to cryptography, steganography has its advantage because the message itself will not attract the audiences, as the very nature of a steganography system is to hide the message in an imperceptible manner.

Using the step-by-step instructions below, we will try to hide a document file in an image file. We can hide other types of files (excel, powerpoint, text, etc) in the image file too.

Get two files. For the example below, we will name these files as Doc1 and Img1.

Document file: Doc1.docx
Image file: Img1.jpg

Step 1:
Create a new folder and put both the document and image files together in the folder.

Step 2:
Compress Doc1 using WinZip or WinRAR. Name the file as Compress1. (Note: You can compress more than one file to be hidden in the image file)

Step 3:
Open "Run" dialog box by pressing the "Windows + R" buttons and type "cmd" in the box. Click OK or press the Enter button to open the Command Prompt Window.

Step 4:

Use the "cd" command to navigate to the folder where you have kept your files. See the example below.

Step 5:

Use the command below to copy the compressed file (Compress1) to Img1.jpg.

copy /b Img1.jpg+Compress.zip Img1.jpg

We are done! We have just hidden the Compress1 file in Img1.

Step 6:

Now, how do we view the Compress1 file hidden in the Img1 file?
We have to extract the Img1 file using WinZip or WinRAR. Yes, you read it correct. We have to extract the image file to view the hidden files!