As the information age progresses and data becomes more and more valuable, methods need to be discovered to protect and secure sensitive data. An original type of security has appeared, different from most types of cryptography in several ways. Steganography is a method of securing data by obscuring the context in which it is transferred. This paper will discuss the applications of steganography including hiding data within: text, mpeg layer three and images. The bulk of the document will talk about how it is used and a basic algorithm I developed for implementing steganography within bitmap images. Cryptography is simply the science of protecting data so that nobody reads it that isn't authorized to do so . It allows an individual to encode data so the recipient will be the only person able to decipher the data. Steganography is in many ways an obscure type of cryptography.