Share thisDiscovering the Hidden is a monthly column examining steganography and data hiding.
Over the course of the past year, a new crop of data hiding and steganography programs have emerged. These new Apps run on Android, iOS, and Windows mobile platforms. As one would expect, the ability to conceal, hide, and protect private information on smart mobile platforms is essential. In addition to the obvious benefits of protecting confidential information, there is a need for the ability to communicate covertly using these devices. Whether, this is benign communication between friends, insiders leaking company secrets, insider trading information, or communication between criminals, these new Apps provide mechanisms that enable covert information sharing. From a corporate, legal, investigative, or law enforcement perspective, being aware of this capability and being able to identify these Apps and the resulting covert communications is, of course, essential.
One of the issues is that there are so many Apps. In the past year alone, I have analyzed over 50 mobile data hiding Apps, with another dozen still awaiting my analysis. For the most part what I have found are old methods applied to a new platform, although usually with a twist.
On the iPhone platform, for example, there are a plethora of offerings. Just a few of the Apps available are shown in the screen shot below which was captured from my iPad.
