ECAI Conference 2025 Conference Paper
Diffusion Model Is a Good Steganalyzer: Magnifying Subtle Perturbations in Image Data
- Xiaoxiao Hu
- Jiaqi Jin
- Shengjiu Dai
- Sheng Li 0006
- Xinpeng Zhang 0001
- Zhenxing Qian
Digital steganography embeds secret messages into images via invisible modifications, posing challenges for steganalysis, which seeks to detect these alterations by analyzing subtle shifts in image distributions. Previous steganalysis efforts primarily focus on enhancing the steganographic signal while suppressing image semantic content, such as through high-pass filtering. However, these empirically designed methods often lack theoretical underpinnings, exhibiting reduced detection accuracy, particularly at low embedding capacities. To address these limitations, we propose an innovative steganalysis approach that transforms images into pure Gaussian noise representations, actively amplifying the subtle distribution shifts introduced by the steganographic processes in spatial images. This paper pioneers the application of diffusion models to magnify steganographic signals, proposing a new paradigm for further research. Specifically, we iteratively perform forward steps of the probability flow in diffusion models to diminish semantic information. By utilizing the natural spreading properties of the diffusion process, we have theoretically validated the efficacy of each forward step in amplifying differences in noise patterns between cover and stego samples. These magnified differences can be easily captured by a simple classifier—a two-layer MLP. Extensive experiments demonstrate the effectiveness of our method, highlighting detection accuracy gains of 10% to 20% under standard conditions and an average 6. 7% increase at low embedding rates compared to existing schemes.