A multilayered scheme for transparent audio data hiding

The use of audio as a host medium for steganography is relatively unpopular in comparison with Image steganography. However, Audio data can provide higher payload rates for data hiding. Among many steganography schemes in the spatial domain, LSB-based coding is widely used because of its good hiding capacity and transparency. In this paper, we propose a new scheme for audio steganography in the spatial domain using a transparent LSB matching approach and then we test the performance of the scheme with standard LSB substitution algorithms and wellknown audio steganography tools. By using a data hiding approach similar to image LSB matching, it has been observed that the proposed scheme provides the highest transparency rates compared to other existing tools. Moreover, in subjective listening tests we found that the hidden information does not leave a sign of steganography use and there was no auditable noise introduced in the host audio signal.