<![CDATA[The development of digital communications has increased the risk of message interception and manipulation, necessitating robust and multi-layered security solutions. This research designs, implements, and evaluates a multi-layered security scheme that integrates cryptography and steganography. The proposed method first encrypts the secret message using the Camellia-256 algorithm in Electronic Codebook (ECB) mode with PKCS#7 padding. The resulting ciphertext is then embedded into the cover image using the Least Significant Bit (LSB) steganography technique. From a practical standpoint, this design provides defense-in-depth for covert communication: encryption preserves confidentiality even if the hidden payload is detected, while steganography reduces the likelihood that the encrypted content is flagged during transmission. This combination mitigates LSB’s weakness against statistical steganalysis by encrypting the payload into ciphertext, thereby reducing structured bit patterns that may otherwise facilitate statistical detection. System performance is quantitatively evaluated using two primary metrics: the Avalanche Effect to measure cryptographic strength and the Peak Signal-to-Noise Ratio (PSNR) to measure the visual imperceptibility of the stego-image. The experimental results demonstrate excellent cryptographic strength, evidenced by an average Avalanche Rate of 54.37%, indicating that minimal changes to the input result in significant changes to the output. Furthermore, the scheme exhibits excellent visual imperceptibility with an average PSNR of 75 dB, making the stego-image visually indistinguishable from the original cover image. It is concluded that the proposed hybrid scheme offers a robust and validated solution for secure message communication, combining content confidentiality through cryptography and message obfuscation through steganography, thus providing dual protection against cybersecurity threats.]]>
