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

In a recent paper presented by Lin et al., 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.