Color Image Encryption Based on an Evolutionary Codebook and Chaotic Systems

Abstract

Encryption of images is an important method that can effectively improve the security and privacy of crucial image data. Existing methods generally encrypt an image with a combination of scrambling and encoding operations. Currently, many applications require highly secure results for image encryption. New methods that can achieve improved randomness for both the scrambling and encoding processes in encryption are thus needed to further enhance the security of a cipher image. This paper proposes a new method that can securely encrypt color images. As the first step of the proposed method, a complete bit-level operation is utilized to scramble the binary bits in a color image to a full extent. For the second step, the bits in the scrambled image are processed with a sweeping operation to improve the encryption security. In the final step of encryption, a codebook that varies with evolutionary operations based on several chaotic systems is utilized to encrypt the partially encrypted image obtained in the second step. Experimental results on benchmark color images suggest that this new approach can securely encrypt color images and generate cipher images that remain secure under different types of attacks. The proposed approach is compared with several other state-of-the-art encryption approaches and the results show that it can achieve improved encryption security for cipher images. Experimental results thus suggest that this new approach can possibly be utilized practically in applications where color images need to be encrypted for content protection.