Four-scanning attack on hierarchical digital watermarking method for image tamper detection and recovery

In a recent paper presented by Lin et at,, a block-based hierarchical watermarking algorithm for digital images is proposed. It adopts parity check and the intensity-relation check to conduct the experiment of image tamper detection. Their experimental results indicate that the precision of tamper detection and localization is 99.6% and 100% after level-2 and level-3 inspections, respectively. The proposed attacks demonstrate that this watermarking algorithm is fundamentally flawed in that the attacker can tamper a watermarked image easily without being detected. In this paper, a four-scanning attack aimed to Lin et al.'s watermarking method is presented to create tampered images. Furthermore, in case they use encryption to protect their 3-tuple-watermark, we proposed a blind attack to tamper watermarked images without being detected. Experimental results are given to support and enhance our conclusions, and demonstrate that our attacks are successful in tampering watermarked images. (c) 2007 Pattern Recognition Society. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.