In this article, I will show you how to hide secret information inside an image using Steghide.

Steghide is a steganography tool that uses a password to hide secret files within the image or audio file. BMP and JPEG picture types are supported, as well as AU and WAV audio formats.

This tool is useful in situations where you want to send encrypted messages or hide personal data.

Installation

To install Steghide, use the following command in your Linux terminal.

apt install steghide

Steghide should now be installed on your system. You can use “steghide –help” command to find all the options.

Embed Data in the Image

In this step, I have created a simple text file (secretpass.txt) with some passwords, which I will embed in my image file (warcraft3.jpg).

To embed the file, use the following command:

steghide embed -ef secretpass.txt -cf warcraft3.jpg -p letmein

The arguments are broken down as follows:

-ef specifies the file that you want to hide. In my case is “secretpass.txt”

-cf is the file that the data is embedded into. In this example I am embedding in an image file called “warcraft3.jpg”.

-p is to specify a password. The password will be required for anyone trying to extract the data from the image.

The text file is now embedded in the image.

Extract Data from the Image

To extract the hidden data use the following command:

steghide extract -sf warcraft3.jpg -p letmein

Here, you can see I have extracted “secretpass.txt” from the “warcraft3.jpg” image. The embedded text file will be extracted and written to your current directory.

You can use “ls” command to see the file. Now I will open “secretpass.txt” file using nano text editor.

nano secretpass.txt

As you can see, this file contains my secret passwords.

Conclusion

I hope you enjoyed this tutorial and realized how easy it is to embed a secret file inside an image. It literally only takes a moment to hide secret messages or passwords inside media files.

Thanks for reading, and if you have any questions, feel free to leave a comment.