Digital Image Security

Information can be duplicated easily nowadays due to the digital communication of multimedia data. Providing authorized data and protecting private information from unauthorized use is a highly difficult and complex process. Using the watermarking technique, only the authorized user can use the data.

Digital Watermarkingis the use of a marker covertly embedded in digital media such as audio, video or image which enables one to know the source or owner of the copyright. This technique is used for tracing copyright infringement on social media and knowing the genuineness of the notes in the banking system. Watermarking is a very secure technique.

The speaker for the webinar is Dr. Ayesha Shaikh, Researcher, Assistant Professor (Senior Grade) in the School of Computer Science and Engineering at Vellore Institute of Technology (VIT) – Chennai campus. Dr. Ayesha began the online session by discussing how the images could be pirated followed by the different ways information can be pirated like illegal duplication, data tampering etc and the various ways to protect the data.

Using a PowerPoint Presentation, she illustrated the different ways a digital image can be protected so that only the authorized user has access to it. The speaker then discussed image security and the need for it. She spoke about the many ways in which it could be protected like cryptography, steganography etc.

She also spoke about the two ways of watermarking namely visible watermarking and invisible watermarking. She also discussed the algorithms for both visible and invisible watermarking in MATLAB followed by the extraction of watermarks. She also added that attacks could be done on watermarked images too and that could be either inadvertent or intentional. The webinar concluded with a Q&A session where students cleared their doubts they had on image security, attacks on watermarking and the need for watermarking. The session was engaging and very interactive. Students were very enthusiastic to participate and learn about how digital security on the image is done by watermarking.