Hybridizing genetic algorithms and path relinking for steganography

Each day the Internet connects more people, increasing the need for transmitting secure information. One way to protect the data sent over the web is to conceal the relevant information inside a typical image, hiding the data from intruders. This paper proposes a hybrid heuristic, combining a genetic algorithm and the path relinking metaheuristic to efficiently solve this problem. Computational results show that the proposed algorithm outperforms the LSB (least significant bits) substitution technique, concerning the quality of solutions. In this way, the inclusion of a path relinking procedure can significantly improve the performance of a genetic algorithm for the problem considered.