ABSTRACT

Growth in technology has made online shopping such an interesting thing but has introduced fraud, making personal information security a major issue for customers as well as merchants and banks in the case of CNP (Card Not Present). In a bid to arrest this ugly situation, this thesis creates a Secured web-based e-Payment system integrating image-based Steganography encryption that will allow a customer to provide limited information necessary for fund transfer during online shopping, enhance security of customer data, prevent misuse of customer’s information and also increase their confidence for online transactions. This platform utilizes this encryption method to send payments between a user and a recipient, which in most times is an e-commerce platform. Here, the user after making purchase, logs into the payment platform, provides his/her payment details which will be automatically encrypted and hidden inside an image and thereafter forwarded to the e-commerce server were the payment details is verified, decrypted and forwarded to the bank for the customer to be billed accordingly. This way, any interception midway by a malicious attacker or unauthorized intrusion (also known as Man-In-The-Middle or MITM attack) of any sort is totally useless to the interceptor as the decryption key is stored in the database. The idea behind this image-based steganography encryption is that the message will be encrypted and also hidden in an image which makes the information that is being transmitted not detectable by the casual eye and more secured. This work therefore concludes that steganography encryption will enhance security of information against middle attackers and also prevent misuse of customer’s information.