emcomm-tools-os-community/overlay/etc/skel/Desktop/offline/crypto/steghide.md

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title	date	updated	author	categories	tags	copyright
Steghide: Steganography Quick Reference	2026-03-22	2026-03-22	The Tech Prepper	cryptography reference	steghide steganography	(C) 2026 The Tech Prepper, LLC

Steghide is a command-line tool used to embed and extract hidden data within image or audio files using steganography. This document provides an example using the JPEG image file format to hide and recover a hidden file with a secret message.

Extract Hidden Data from A JPEG Image

Run the following command and use the password beprepared when prompted to extract the secret file from the image named steghide.jpg in this directory.

steghide extract -sf steghide.jpg

Run cat secret.txt to view the contents of the hidden file.

Embed Data in JPEG File

Hide a file (i.e. secret.txt) inside a JPEG image. Replace IMAGE with your own JPEG image file. This will create a file named output.jpg with the file secret.txt hidden inside.

steghide embed -cf IMAGE -ef secret.txt -sf output.jpg

Best Practices

• Use large, high-quality cover files
• Do NOT compressing images after embedding
• Use strong passphrases

Common Workflow

1. Prepare a secret file
2. Select a large enough cover image to store your hidden file
3. Embed using steghide
4. Post or share the output image in plain sight