Steganography, a technique of concealing data within shared information, plays a crucial role in addressing the imperative of safeguarding data within computer networks. While encryption serves as a vital process for encoding both text and images to ensure data security, its susceptibility lies in the potential exposure of encryption keys, which can lead to decryption by unauthorized parties. Cryptography, on the other hand, employs mathematical techniques to secure communication and information, ensuring confidentiality, integrity, authentication, and nonrepudiation of data. By fortifying cybersecurity, cryptography serves as a pivotal tool in protecting sensitive information across various applications.

The objective of this project is to develop a robust Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) algorithm capable of encrypting text before embedding the resulting ciphertext within an image through steganography. The Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) is widely used for securing sensitive data. This approach ensures that decoding the concealed information necessitates the correct encryption key, thereby ensuring protection for both the image and the embedded text. By integrating AES encryption with steganography, the project aims to enhance data security through layered measures, mitigating conventional encryption risks by hiding ciphertext within the pixels of an image. This fusion of encryption and steganography presents a promising strategy for bolstering data confidentiality and security within communication channels.