Hiding Secret Information in DNA Sequences Using Silent Mutations
Amal Khalifa *
Department of Computer Science, College of Computer and Information Sciences, Princess Nora Bint Abdulrehman University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia and Department of Scientific Computing, Faculty of Computer and Information Sciences, Ain Shams University, Cairo, Egypt.
Safwat Hamad
Department of Scientific Computing, Faculty of Computer and Information Sciences, Ain Shams University, Cairo, Egypt.
*Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Abstract
People are always looking for secure methods to protect valuable information against unauthorized access or use. That's why; disciplines like cryptography and steganography are gaining a great interest among researchers. Although the origin of steganography goes back to the ancient Greeks, recent steganographic techniques hide data into digital media such as sound, images, and videos. However, steganography took a step further to utilize the DNA as a carrier of secret information. DNA-based steganography techniques could be for either authentication or data storage. In this paper, we propose an original idea of hiding data in DNA or RNA called LSBase (Least Significant Base Substitution). It uses a remarkable property of codon redundancy to introduce silent mutations into DNA sequences. In this way, the DNA sequence can be altered without affecting the type or the structure of protein it produces. When compared with other techniques, the proposed algorithm showed to be the only blind technique that is capable of conserving the functionality of the carrier DNA while maintaining a reasonable data payload.
Keywords: Information hiding, steganography, DNA, codons, codon redundancy, mutation