MACSteg: Real-Time Voice Authentication and Deepfake Protection Using Device MAC Address Steganography

Sanaa Ahmed Kadhim^1,*, Zaid Ali Alsarray¹, Saad Abdual Azize Abdual Rahman², Massila Kamalrudin³, Mustafa Musa⁴

¹University of Information Technology and Communications, Biomedical Informatics College, 10066, Baghdad, Iraq

²Department of Computer Engineering Techniques, Almamoon University Collage, Baghdad, Iraq

³Universiti Teknikal Malaysia, Faculty of Information and Communication Technology, Melaka, Malaysia

⁴Universiti Teknikal Malaysia, Center of Research and Innovation Management, Melaka, Malaysia

Emails: dr.sanaa.ahmed@uoitc.edu.iq; zaid.ali-bmic@uoitc.edu.iq; Saad.a.azize@almamonuc.edu.iq; massila@utem.edu.my; mustafamusa@utem.edu.my

Abstract

The invention of deepfake applications make it possible to produce highly natural and real voice recordings which creates critical concerns about the credibility of audio telecommunications. The confirmation of the speakers’ voices became essential especially for sensitive data such as financial, healthcare, and surveillance risk management services, authentication of speakers’ voices became significantly crucial. To improve solutions to this issue, this paper presents MACSteg strategy which is a real-time, lightweight voice authentication technique by discreetly encapsulate device’s MAC address within voice file using Quantization Index Modulation (QIM) stego-technique. Unlike many traditional strategies that degrade voice quality or produces noticed jitter, MACSteg technique preserve both clarity and efficiency. Implementations showed that the hidden MAC address stayed intact in spite of some typical voice processing such as compression, while interfered signals reformed by clatter or volume variations were consistently detected. The proposed system obtained a high signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) exceeding 70 dB, illustrating that the alterations were inaudible, and maintained well in real-time submissions, giving only a processing delay of 0.01 milliseconds per each audio segment. The results indicate MACSteg’s potential as a ascendable and effective approach for safeguarding voice authenticity, especially in circumstances where verification of speaker’s voice is vital.

Keywords: Steganography; Voice authentication; QIM; MAC address hiding; Deepfake prevention; Secure audio communications