Development of an efficient steganalysis framework for uncovering hidden data in digital media

UNCOVER is end-user-driven and responds to the real needs of the participating Law Enforcement Agencies to detect hidden information in innocent looking data.

RMA will coordinate the project. Coordination activities: Project management, Project administration, Scientific coordination, Security management

Criminals and terrorists increasingly use data hiding methods (steganography) to conceal incriminating information in seemingly harmless digital media such as images, video, audio, and text files. To carry out a full investigation into criminal and terrorist activities, Law Enforcement Agencies (LEAs) currently use available (commercial) tools to detect such hidden information in collected digital data. However, these tools detect only a limited number of hiding methods, are slow, and offer no indication of confidence. Moreover, many commercial tools lag a decade behind the scientific state-of-the-art.
Driven by end-user needs, UNCOVER's main objective was to fill the gaps in LEAs’ ability for detecting hidden information (steganalysis). Within UNCOVER, the partners were committed to pushing steganalysis research forward and substantially increasing the technological autonomy of LEAs in the field of digital media steganalysis. The developed detection and investigation tools were integrated into a flexible and user-friendly platform. The developed detection and investigation tools were integrated into a flexible and user-friendly platform.
End-users played a key role throughout the project cycle and regular feedback cycles with LEAs, forensics institutes and external stakeholders ensured that the developed solutions could be integrated into the daily criminal investigation pipeline of LEAs. With its consortium of 22 partners including LEAs, forensic institutes, leading universities and research institutions, as well as industrial companies, UNCOVER set out to outperform available steganalysis solutions in terms of performance, usability, operational needs, privacy protection, and chain-of-custody considerations.
Project Objectives
UNCOVER partners aimed to join forces to achieve the following objectives:
1. Advance the scientific state-of-the-art in steganalysis, bridging across the various technical areas of expertise involved.
2. Develop, test and evaluate solutions for real-life LEA problems, based on their end-user requirements and expectations.
3. Analyse and implement proper solutions for any relevant security, ethical, legal and privacy related concerns.
4. Develop and implement interdisciplinary technical capabilities, capacity and community building.
5. Engage and collaborate with any other relevant ongoing projects and initiatives.
Our diligent work has enabled us to successfully complete all project objectives.

This project has been funded by the Horizon 2020 Programme of the European Commission.