A Survey on Reversible Data Hiding for Encrypted Image Based on Block Mean Difference Histogram Shifting

Abstract

Reversible data hiding in encrypted images (RDHEI) has become a critical technique for safeguarding data privacy and security in the era of digital communication and cloud computing. This paper presents a comprehensive survey of existing reversible data hiding techniques, including least significant bit (LSB) substitution, difference expansion (DE), and histogram modification. These techniques have contributed significantly to the field by enabling the embedding and extraction of hidden data while preserving the reversibility of the original image. However, they often encounter challenges such as low peak signal-to-noise ratio (PSNR) and high error rates, which can degrade the visual quality and reliability of the reconstructed images. To overcome these limitations, we propose a novel RDHEI framework based on block mean difference histogram shifting. This approach leverages the block-wise mean differences and their histogram properties to embed additional data while ensuring high payload capacity and minimal image degradation. By effectively addressing the issues of low PSNR and high errors, our proposed technique significantly improves the performance of reversible data hiding in encrypted images. We compare the existing methods in detail, outlining their strengths and weaknesses, and highlight how our framework achieves lossless recovery of the original image. Ultimately, our proposed approach ensures secure, reliable, and reversible data embedding for a wide range of digital security applications.