Quantum Key - Based Secure Image Steganography with AES Encryption

Abstract

We are building a highly secure way of sending messages by combining the use of Quantum Key Distribution (QKD) to produce encryption keys and encrypting messages with a variant of AES-256 (a substitution cipher) and Least Significant Bit (LSB) steganography or hiding them in images. We are employing the BB84 protocol to produce these keys based on the quantum properties of the photonic (light) particles; we can detect any third parties attempting to intercept the key and measure it by the Quantum Bit Error Rate (QBER). Once we have produced a secure key, we then use it to encrypt the actual message with AES-256, and we hide that in a digital image (the cover image) with LSB steganography. Thus, if a third party were to capture the Stego image (the digital image containing the hidden encrypted message), they would not be able to decrypt the hidden message without the key that was produced using quantum cryptography. An analytics dashboard monitors the success of the key generation, the QBER value, and other performance metrics, giving a high degree of transparency and trustworthiness of the whole process.