How to Hide Data and Programs within zip/jar file

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Zip files are often used to assort files to send them to other people, usually via email. The utilities such as WinZip are used to create and open zip files that can be password protected. The Windows XP files are released with built-in zip capabilities. According to Microsoft these are called “compressed folders”. Users can also password protect the zip files and you can also see the list of files inside it. Even if a zip file is password protected, you might still see the list of files inside it. With steganography you can hide data and program within a zip/jar file. We will show you two simple methods.

Steghide is a steganography program that has been designed to hide data in various kinds of image and audio files.  The color respectively sample frequencies are not changed making the embedding resistant against first-order statistical tests.

In order to hide text behind an Image you can first download Steghide from here. The software is available for Windows and Linux. It’s a Windows package, after downloading unzip the contents of the zip file into a directory of your choice.  Use the steghide from the command prompt.

Step 1:  After you have unzipped and extracted the contents of Steghide, you can navigate to the command prompt.
Step 2: Typing steghide at the command prompt offers you available options
Step 3: To hide a txt file behind an image type the following command

C:\>steghide embed -cf picture.jpg -ef secret.txt
Enter passphrase:
Re-Enter passphrase:
embedding “secret.txt” in “picture.jpg”

Step 4: After having embedded the secret data as shown above you might be able to send the file picture.jpg to the person who should receive the secret message. The receiver has to use steghide in the following way

C:\>steghide extract -sf picture.jpg
Enter passphrase:
wrote extracted data to “secret.txt”

In case the supplied passphrase is correct. The contents of original file secret.txt will be extracted from the stego file picture.jpg and saved in the current directory.

Alternately, here another method how you can hide all the secret files in a zip file (or compressed file).

Step 1: In order to create a zip folder, right click into the other folder or in an empty place on the desktop and choose “New” “Compressed Folder”

Step 2: Let’s say you name the new zip files as “Top Secret” and “Data“.

Step 3: Now add some top secret files to the “Data” folder. Now you add a JPG picture to it.

Step 4: Open the Data.zip by double clicking it and then drag the JPG file into it.

Step 5: Let’s add the stuff zip file to the “Top Secret” zip file.

Step 6: Add a password to the “Top Secret” compressed folder

Step 8: Type the password in twice to confirm it

Step 9: Next time anyone opens the zip folder. They would see the file named “Data.zip“. In case you open it or extract it, they will be prompted to enter the password.

Step 10: All of the files inside the Data.zip are hidden. This is why you require two zip files

Step 11: Last thing you need to do is delete the older copies of Data and the JPG. These have been ensconced safely and securely inside the “Top Secret” zip folder.