FACSNet: Forensics aided content selection network for heterogeneous image steganalysis

The main goal of image steganalysis, as a technique of confrontation with steganography, is to determine the presence or absence of secret information in conjunction with the specific statistical characteristics of the carrier. With the development of deep learning technology in recent years, the performance of steganography has been gradually enhanced. Especially for the complex reality environment, the image content is mixed and heterogeneous, which brings great challenges to the practical application of image steganalysis technology. In order to solve this problem, we design a forensics aided content selection network (FACSNet) for heterogeneous image steganalysis. Considering the heterogeneous situation of real images, a forensics aided module is introduced to pre-categorise the images to be tested, so that the network is able to detect different categories of images in a more targeted way. The complexity of the images is also further analysed and classified using the content selection module to train a more adapted steganalyser. By doing this, the network is allowed to achieve better performance in recognising and classifying the heterogeneous images for detection. Experimental results show that our designed FACSNet is able to achieve excellent detection performance in heterogeneous environments, improving the detection accuracy by up to 7.14% points, with certain robustness and practicality.