Unified Model for Secure Communication using Video Steganography and Cryptographic Techniques

The rapid expansion of digital communication platforms has intensified the need for highly secure data transmission mechanisms. Conventional cryptographic techniques, while effective in protecting data confidentiality, often reveal the presence of encrypted content and may become targets for cryptanalysis or traffic analysis attacks. To address these limitations, this paper presents a unified secure communication model that combines robust cryptographic preprocessing with advanced video steganography. Initially, the secret data is encrypted using AES-256 to ensure strong confidentiality, while HMAC-SHA256 is applied to guarantee data integrity and authentication. The encrypted payload is then embedded within video files by exploiting their high storage capacity and temporal redundancy, thereby concealing the very existence of sensitive information. This dual-layer approach enhances resistance against interception, detection, and tampering. Experimental evaluation confirms the effectiveness of the proposed framework, achieving 100% extraction accuracy and maintaining high visual quality with PSNR values exceeding 40 dB, demonstrating strong imperceptibility and practical applicability.