Malware distribution to the victim network is commonly performed through file
attachments in phishing email or from the internet, when the victim interacts
with the source of infection. To detect and prevent the malware distribution in
the victim machine, the existing end device security applications may leverage
techniques such as signature or anomaly-based, machine learning techniques. The
well-known file formats Portable Executable (PE) for Windows and Executable and
Linkable Format (ELF) for Linux based operating system are used for malware
analysis, and the malware detection capabilities of these files has been well
advanced for real-time detection. But the malware payload hiding in multimedia
using steganography detection has been a challenge for enterprises, as these
are rarely seen and usually act as a stager in sophisticated attacks. In this
article, to our knowledge, we are the first to try to address the knowledge gap
between the current progress in image steganography and steganalysis academic
research focusing on data hiding and the review of the stegomalware (malware
payload hiding in images) targeting enterprises with cyberattacks current
status. We present the stegomalware history, generation tools, file format
specification description. Based on our findings, we perform the detail review
of the image steganography techniques including the recent Generative
Adversarial Networks (GAN) based models and the image steganalysis methods
including the Deep Learning(DL) models for hiding data detection. Additionally,
the stegomalware detection framework for enterprise is proposed for anomaly
based stegomalware detection emphasizing the architecture details for different
network environments. Finally, the research opportunities and challenges in
stegomalware generation and detection are also presented.