JPEG-Phase-Aware Convolutional Neural Network for Steganalysis of JPEG Images

Detection of modern JPEG steganographic algorithms has traditionally relied on features aware of the JPEG phase. In this paper, we port JPEG-phase awareness into the architecture of a convolutional neural network to boost the detection accuracy of such detectors. Another innovative concept introduced into the detector is the "catalyst kernel" that, together with traditional high-pass filters used to pre-process images allows the network to learn kernels more relevant for detection of stego signal introduced by JPEG steganography. Experiments with J-UNIWARD and UED-JC embedding algorithms are used to demonstrate the merit of the proposed design.