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Home > Books > Multimedia Information Retrieval

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Multiple-Image Fusion Encryption

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 (MIFE) Using Discrete Cosine
Transformation (DCT) and Pseudo
Random Number Generators
Submitted: 29 February 2020 , Reviewed: 03 April 2020 , Published: 30 June 2020

DOI: 10.5772/intechopen.92369

W R I T T E N BY
Lee Mariel Heucheun Yepdia, Alain Tiedeu and Zied Lachiri

R E G I ST E R TO D O W N LOA D F O R F R E E

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FROM THE EDITED VOLUME

IntechOpen

Multimedia Information Multimedia Information Retrieval

Retrieval

Edited by Eduardo Quevedo Edited by Eduardo Quevedo

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Abstract
This chapter proposes a new multiple-image encryption algorithm based on
spectral fusion of watermarked images and new chaotic generators. Logistic-

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 May (LM), May-Gaussian (MG), and Gaussian-Gompertz (GG) were used as
chaotic generators for their good properties in order to correct the flaws of 1D
chaotic maps (Logistic, May, Gaussian, Gompertz) when used individually.
Firstly, the discrete cosine transformation (DCT) and the low-pass filter of
appropriate sizes are used to combine the target watermarked images in the
spectral domain in two di"erent multiplex images. Secondly, each of the two
images is concatenated into blocks of small size, which are mixed by changing
their position following the order generated by a chaotic sequence from the
Logistic-May system (LM). Finally, the fusion of both scrambled images is
achieved by a nonlinear mathematical expression based on Cramer’s rule to
obtain two hybrid encrypted images. Then, after the decryption step, the
hidden message can be retrieved from the watermarked image without any
loss. The security analysis and experimental simulations confirmed that the
proposed algorithm has a good encryption performance; it can encrypt a large
number of images combined with text, of di"erent types while maintaining a
reduced Mean Square Error (MSE) after decryption.

Keywords

spectral fusion chaotic generators image encryption watermarked images

Author Information Show +

1. Introduction
Several image encryption algorithms are being developed today to meet
privacy needs in multimedia communications [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12,
13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33]. With
the rapid expansion of the Internet, innovative technologies, and
cryptanalysis, it has become necessary to build new and appropriate
cryptosystems for secured data transfer, especially for digital images.

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 Nowadays, a large quantity of images is produced in various fields and
exchanged sometimes with text through di"erent channels, favoring the
development of multiple-image encryption (MIE) instead of single-image
encryption (SIE). A secure technique to protect the large amounts of data
(image and text) exchanged in unsecured communication channels is to
combine cryptography and watermarking [26, 27]. These two combined
approaches help to produce a two-level security of the text and image,
especially when the message is hidden in the image to be encrypted. Various
watermarking techniques are proposed in the literature [28, 29, 30, 31, 32], and
the most used are discrete wavelet transformation (DWT) and discrete cosine
transformation (DCT). For instance, if an information, such as a signature, a
logo, or a text is embedded in low- or medium-frequency DCT coe!cients,
then it may be recovered without any loss; however, only high-frequency DCT
coe!cients are lost in low-pass filtering.

In literature, many encryption algorithms, such as International Data

Encryption Algorithm (IDEA), Advanced Encryption Standard (AES), and
Data Encryption Standard (DES) have been proposed [1]. However, these
standard algorithms do not seem to be appropriate for image encryption,
because of the intrinsic features of images, such as huge data capacity, high
redundancy, strong correlation among adjacent pixels, and low entropy [2].
Some basic properties of chaotic systems such as the sensitivity to the initial
condition and control parameters, sensitivity to plain text, ergodicity and
randomness behavior, meet the requirements for a good cryptosystem.
Consequently, several cryptosystems were developed by researchers, based on
chaotic systems because the latter provided a good combination of speed, high
security, complexity, reasonable computational overheads, and computational
power [3]. With these features, chaotic-based cryptosystems have excellent
properties of confusion and di"usion, which are desirable in cryptography.
Therefore, many techniques involving di"erent chaotic systems have been
published [2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 23], and we can distinguish one-
dimensional (1D) chaotic maps and high-dimensional (HD) chaotic maps.

Among the chaotic encryption algorithms developed, the ones using a one-
dimensional (1D) chaotic system like Logistic, May, Tent, and Sine map have
proven to have some strengths, such as: high-level e!ciency, simplicity, and

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 high-speed encryption. 1D chaotic structures have been widely used [4] due to
their simple structures, as opposed to the complex ones of higher dimensional
chaotic system (which causes a relative slowness in computation). However,
some schemes using the 1D map have been broken due to their weaknesses like
nonuniform data output, small key space, periodic data output, and poor
ergodicity properties for some ranges of control parameters [5, 6]. To
overcome this drawback, some researchers stated that the 1D chaotic map
should not be used alone [7, 8]. Others proposed new 1D chaotic systems with
better properties like Spatiotemporal chaos in [9], coupled with the 1D chaotic
map [6], the Nonlinear Chaotic map Algorithm (NCA) [10], and, more
recently, nonlinear combinations of two di"erent 1D chaotic maps [3, 11, 12].
For example, Abanda and Tiedeu [3] combined outputs of Du!ng and
Colpitts chaotic systems to encrypt gray and color images. Kamdeu and Tiedeu
[11] proposed a fast and secured encryption scheme using new 1D chaotic
systems obtained from Logistic, May, Gaussian, and Gompertz maps. In [12],
Chenaghlu et al. proposed a polynomial combination of 1D chaotic maps for
image encryption using dynamic functions generation.

Recently, in order to increase the e!ciency of cryptosystems for multiple

images, some authors proposed algorithms integrating the concept of fusion or
mixing images as a step in the encryption process. Image fusion has been
proven to have potential for encryption in both spatial and frequency domains.
In the last 8 years, much e"ort has been devoted to compressing and
encrypting images at the same time [13], which is considered as a new tool
used to reduce the amount of data to be transmitted and protecting the use of
these data against unauthorized access. In particular, the discrete cosine
transformation (DCT) is employed as a useful tool for spectral fusion in most
of these methods. The widely used application DCT for image compression is
mainly based on its energy compaction property, which means that the low-
frequency coe!cients are located around the top-left corner of its spectral
plane [24]. In 2018, Jridi and Alfalou [14] proposed a cryptosystem to improve
a Simultaneous Fusion, Compression and Encryption (SFCE) scheme [15] in
terms of time consumption, bandwidth occupation, and encryption
robustness. In [16], Dongfeng et al. proposed a new scheme for simultaneous
fusion, imaging and encryption of multiple target images using a single-pixel
detector. This algorithm achieves good performance in terms of robustness as

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 the number of images to multiplex increases, but su"ered from reduced key
space and poor quality of images recovered. Mehra and Nishchal [17] proposed
an image fusion encryption based on wavelets for securing multiple images
through asymmetric keys. It o"ers a large key space, which enhances the
security of the system. In 2016, Qin et al. [18] proposed an optical multiple-
image encryption scheme in di"ractive imaging using spectral fusion and
nonlinear operations.

More recently, Zhang and Wang [19, 20] proposed two schemes of multiple-
image encryption (MIE): the first algorithm based on mixed image element
and permutation, and the second MIE algorithm based on mixed image
element and chaos. The cryptosystem shows good performances, but can be
improved in terms of compression to reduce the size of the multiplex big
image when the number of target images increases. In [21], Zhu and Zhang
proposed an encryption algorithm of mixed image element based on an elliptic
curve cryptosystem. Experimental results and theoretical analysis show that
the algorithm possesses a large key space and can accomplish a high level of
security concerning information interaction on the network platform, but the
encryption and decryption computational time is long. In 2013, Abdalla and
Tamimi [22] proposed a cryptosystem, which combines two or more images of
di"erent types and sizes by using a shu$ing-substitution procedure. Here, the
process of mixing image combines stream cipher with block cipher, on the
byte level.

After analyzing most MIE algorithms operating in the spectral domain, the
robustness of the cryptosystem increases with the number of input images.
Consequently, the quality of decrypted images is degraded. Therefore, it is
important to design cryptosystems that can keep a good compromise between
a large number of images added to text to encrypt, a small MSE after
decryption, and a good performance in terms of robustness and e!ciency.

As a result, this chapter suggests a new MIE algorithm based on the spectral
fusion of di"erent types of watermarked images of same size using discrete
cosine transformation (DCT) associated with a low-pass filter and chaotic
maps. The proposed scheme has several strengths: it is robust, combines
watermarking and cryptography, which produce a two-level security, uses

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 chaotic maps with good properties, encrypts a large number of watermarked
images into two hybrid ciphered images, and the quality of the reconstructed
images and text is good (reduced MSE). The encryption process comprises
three main steps: in the first step, target images are fused into two images
through DCT and low-pass filter; in the second step, the small blocks with the
size of (4 × 4) images are permuted in a certain order; and in the last step,
which is the di"usion phase, the two scrambled images are fused by a
nonlinear mathematical expression based on Cramer’s rule to obtain two
hybrid encrypted images. The key generation of the cryptosystem is made
dependent on the plain images.

The rest of the chapter is organized as follows: Section 2 presents an overview

of chaotic generators used in the cryptosystem and the description of the
watermarking process. In Section 3, spectral fusion of plain images is detailed.
The proposed encryption/decryption scheme is given in Section 4. In Section
5, experimental results and algorithm analyses are presented, then compared
with others in the literature. We end with a conclusion in Section 6.

A DV E RT I S E M E N T

2. Brief review on 1D chaotic systems used

2.1 1D logistic, May, Gaussian, and Gompertz maps

The equations of 1D Logistic, May, Gaussian, and Gompertz maps are

described from Eqs. (1) to (4), respectively [11].

2.1.1 1D logistic map

xn+1 = rx n (1 − xn ) E1
where xn ∈ [0, 1] is the discrete state of the output chaotic sequence and r is
the control parameter with values in the range (0, 4]. The chaotic behavior of

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 the Logistic map is observed in the range [3.5, 4].

2.1.2 May map

xn+1 = xn exp (a (1 − xn )) E2
where xn ∈ [0, 10.9] and the control parameter a belongs to the range [0, 5].

2.1.3 Gaussian map

xn+1 = exp (−αx2n ) + c E3

where α∈ [4.7, 17], c∈ [−1, 1].

2.1.4 Gompertz map

xn+1 = − bxn ln xn E4
where the control parameter b ∈ (0, e ], e = 2.71829… and is the exponential
function.

2.2 Combination of new 1D chaotic maps

The chaotic properties of 1D Logistic, May, Gaussian, and Gompertz maps are
not suitable to build a secure cryptosystem when they are used alone. To solve
this problem, Zhou et al. [23] proposed to combine the di"erent seed maps.
Figure 1 shows the new map obtained from a nonlinear combination of two
di"erent 1D chaotic maps.

Figure 1.
New chaotic scheme.

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 2.2.1 Logistic-May map (LM)

Its equation is defined by Eq. (5)

xn+1 = (xn exp ((r + 9) (1 − xn )) − (r + 5)xn (1 − xn )) mod 2 E5

where xn ∈ [0, 1] and r ∈ [0, 5]. From its bifurcation diagram, we can observe
that chaotic properties are excellent within [0, 5], with a maximum Lyaponuv
exponent equal to 8.3.

2.2.2 May-Gaussian (MG)

Eq. (6) defines the May-Gaussian (MG) map

xn+1 = (xn exp ((r + 10) (1 − xn )) +

(r+5)
4
+ exp (−αx2n )) mod 2 E6
where xn ∈ [0, 1] , r ∈ [0, 5], α ∈ [4.7, 17] . From its bifurcation diagram, the
Lyaponuv exponents are positive and belong to the range [2.5, 5.6].

2.2.3 Gaussian-Gompertz

It is defined by Eq. (7)

xn+1 = ( + exp (−αx2n ) − (r/5 + 26)xn log xn ) mod 2

(r/5+26)
4
E7
where xn ∈ [0, 1] , r ∈ [0, 5], α ∈ [4.7, 17] . It has a mean Lyaponuv exponent
around 2.5.

Figure 2 illustrates the bifurcation diagram and the Lyaponuv exponent

graphics of these maps. Referring to Figure 2, all the previous 1D chaotic
systems present a wider chaotic range and a more uniform distribution of their
density functions. Furthermore, the maximum Lyaponuv exponent values
obtained are respectively 8.1, 5.6, and 2.5. Then, these combined 1D systems
are more suitable for secure and high-speed encryption if the encryption
algorithm is built around a good algebraic structure. Additively, in order to
confirm the good performance of the previous pseudo random number

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 generators, we performed the NIST statistical tests. Analysis of these results
(see Table 1) showed that all the 15 tests were congruent for the three chaotic
maps.

Figure 2.
Bifurcation diagrams and Lyaponuv exponent graphics of combined chaotic maps, (a)
and (d) logistic-may, (b) and (e) May-Gaussian, (c) and (f) Gaussian-Gompertz.

Logistic-May map May-Gaussian map Gaussian-Gompertz

(LM) (MG) map

Statistical test

p-Value Result p-Value Result p-Value Result

Frequency 0.98147 98/100 0.99680 100/100 0.99438 100/100

Block-frequency 0.6929 97/100 0.69842 98/100 0.678415 97/100

Cumulative-sums 0.78621 96/100 0.87124 97/100 0.9014 100/100

Runs 0.88052 99/100 0.92735 100/100 0.87246 98/100

Longest-runs 0.98654 99/100 0.99815 100/100 0.97729 98/100

Rank 0.54702 97/100 0.57914 98/100 0.5873 99/100

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 FFT 0.87531 97/100 0.89678 98/100 0.82670 98/100

Nonoverlapping-
0.78951 100/100 0.75091 99/100 0.77856 98/100
templates

Overlapping-templates 0.28435 99/100 0.18942 97/100 0.25167 98/100

Universal 0.38277 99/100 0.34834 98/100 0.37051 100/100

Approximate entropy 0.45393 98/100 0.49357 99/100 0.41560 98/100

Random-excursions 0.195257 60/60 0.192410 59/60 0.19478 59/60

Random-excursions
0.14358 58/60 0.13871 57/60 0.15120 59/60
Variant

Serial 0.42962 97/100 0.47359 99/100 0.41757 97/100

Linear-complexity 0.08945 98/100 0.32876 100/100 0.15762 98/100

Final result success success success

Table 1.
Statistical NIST tests results of 1,000,000 bits.

2.3 Description of the watermarked process

Before multiplexing the target images, a binary information in the form of a

logo was inserted in one of the target images. To do this, we used a simple
watermarked algorithm, which makes the hidden message imperceptible in the
watermarked image. Taking advantage of the benefits of DCT, it is possible to
embed an information or watermark (text, logo, image) in low- or medium-
frequency DCT coe!cients. In fact, DCT decomposes an image into three
frequency regions: low, medium, and high frequencies. It is recommended to
insert the watermark in the low- and medium-frequency regions of the host
image in order to ensure imperceptibility [32]. In this work, we adopted the
watermarking technique described in [33] in which the message to hide is
added to the medium-frequency region discrete cosine coe!cients in selected
pixel blocks of size 8 × 8 . All the blocks satisfying the condition Ds > Av × α
are eligible blocks suitable for watermark embedding, where Av is the average

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 for all pixels in the block considered from the host image; Ds represents the
di"erence sum for all the pixels used in the block; and α is a constant threshold
value selected. The value of α must be high to ensure the most hidden message
imperceptibility in the watermarked image; α є [0, 255].

To illustrate an embedded process, as can be seen in Figure 3, we used a host

image of size 512×512 , and a binary watermarked image of size 64×64. We
can notice from Figure 3 that the binary image (watermarked) is recovered
without loss of information.

Figure 3.
Results of the watermarked process. (a) Host image (512
×512) , (b) watermark (64
×64), (c) watermarked image, (d) recovered watermark.

In order to protect the watermarked and host image from unauthorized access
and noise attack, the watermarked image was encrypted with other images in a
mixed process.

2.4 Spectral fusion of target images

In this section, N target images of size (M , M ) are combined into two images,
each containing {N /2} target images. As described in [24], discrete cosine
transformation (DCT) is first applied separately to each of the target images.
In the second step, every spectrum is multiplied by a low-pass filter, of size
(M’, M’) pixels, as indicated in Figure 4. In this manner, it is possible to
reconstruct every target image through the relevant information contained in

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 each block. At this step, the compression rate Cp is:

Figure 4.
Spectral fusion of target images.

Cp = 1– (size of multiplexed DCT spectral plane/size of N inputs images)

cp = 1 − (M 2 /N × M 2 ) = 1 − 1/N E8
Then, after all of these target images are grouped together by a way of simple
addition, the inverse discrete cosine transformation (IDCT) of the multiplex
image is performed. A simple rotation is performed on each of these blocks
before spectral multiplexing, to prevent from information overlap. Figure 4
illustrates the description of the process. It is possible to multiplex a large
number of target images by selecting a smaller size of the filter. However, in
this case, the recovered images will be highly altered. To keep a good quality of
reconstructed images while maintaining a large number of target images to
encrypt, we chose to group these images in two multiplex images of the same
size.

2.5 Proposed encryption/decryption scheme

This section presents the proposed cryptosystem, which comprises blocks-

permutation and di"usion steps using chaotic generators. Figure 5 illustrates
the entire process.

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 Figure 5.
Encryption scheme.

2.5.1 Encryption process

A. Blocks-permutation

The plain image is each of the two multiplex images obtained in Section 3. The
plain image is decomposed into small blocks of the same size; let us choose
blocks size of (4 × 4 ) pixels. In fact, increasing the number of blocks by using
smaller block size resulted in a lower correlation and higher entropy; then, the
intelligible information contained in the image will be reduced.

The permutation of blocks is realized as follows:

Divide the plain image I I of size M × M into k blocks of size (4 × 4 ), with

k = M4 × M4

Use initial condition and control parameters x01, r01 of Logistic-May system to
generate a chaotic sequence by iterating k times Eq. (5). The values of the
sequence X obtained are ranged in a row vector P of size (1, k) .

Repeat step 2 to generate a new sequence, using new initial condition and
control parameters x02 and r02. This second sequence is to permute the small
blocks of the second multiplex image.

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 Sort the chaotic sequence P in ascending order, and get a new sequence
P ' = {Pt′ }k = {Pt1′ ; Pt2′ , … Ptk′ } . Therefore, the sequence x01, r01, x02, r02 is
the permutation of the sequence 1, 2,…, k.

Number all the blocks of the plain image obtained in step 1, and adjust their
positions with the previous permutation of step 3. Then, the image obtained is
a block image permuted.

The values x01, r01, x02, r02 are calculated through Eqs. (9) and (10). In this
process, we subdivide each multiplex image Ii, (i = 1, 2) in two parts, P1 and P2
of same size.

x0i = (x0 + mean (Ii )/255) mod 1 E9

r 0i = (r 0 + 0.1 × max (S 1 , S 2 )/N × M × 29 E10
where, S1 is the sum of pixels’ intensities of the first part P1 of the multiplex
image Ii, and S2 for P2.x0 ϵ [0, 0.9],r ϵ [0, 4.9].

B. Di"usion of the scrambled images

At this level, the two scrambled images are combined in order to create the
final hybrid encrypted images that would be di!cult to crack. The May-
Gaussian and Gaussian-Gompertz systems in Eqs. (6) and (7) are used as
pseudo random generators to generate two chaotic sequences after 2 M × 2 M
iterations. These values are arranged in two arrays W and T of sizes 2 M × 2 M,
respectively, where M represents the number of rows and columns of each
scrambled image. W and T are converted into real values in unit 8 format;
(W = uint8(W× 255); T = uint8(T× 255)). The initial conditions and control
parameters of the two pseudo random numbers generators are xp1,rp1 and xp2,
rp2, α, respectively, for May-Gaussian and Gaussian-Gompertz systems. These
parameters are determined with Eqs. (11) and (12).

xpi = x0 + 0.1 × min (Ii )/256 E11

r pi = r + 0.1 × min (Ii + 1)/ max (Ii + 2) E12
where max (Ii) and min (Ii) are, respectively, maximum and minimum pixel’s
intensities values of Ii. x0 ϵ [0, 0.9], r ϵ (0, 4.9].

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 E13
The arrays W and T are divided into four sub-blocks of same size M × M. The
two scrambled images I1 and I2 are linearly combined with the sub-blocks of
W and T using the following equations:

C1 (i, j) = [w11 × I1 (i, j) + w12 × I2 (i, j)) mod 256 ⊕ floor (t11 × t21 ) × 1015 )]
E14
C2 (i, j) = [w21 × I1 (i, j) + w22 × I2 (i, j)) mod 256 ⊕ floor (t12 × t22 ) × 1015 )]
E15
where C1 (i, j) and C2 (i, j) are the two encrypted hybrid images of the
cryptosystem, and ⊕ is the bit wise XOR operator. The mixed product tij × tji
in the above relations enhances the quality of the merged images.

2.5.2 Decryption process

In the decryption process, the encrypted images are first decomposed using
Cramer’s rule in order to recover the scrambled images. Knowing the fusion
keys (xp1, rp1, xp2, rp2, α), the receiver can get the images I1 and I2 by solving
the system of equations below:

(I1 [i, j] × w11 + I2 [i, j] × w12 )mod 256 = C1 (floor (t11 × t21 ) × 1015 )
{
(I1 [i, j] × w21 + I2 [i, j] × w22 )mod 256 = C2 (floor (t12 × t22 ) × 1015 )
Then, the two multiplex images can be obtained easily by decrypting I1 and I2
through reverse permutation operations.

A DV E RT I S E M E N T

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3. Experimental results and algorithm analysis

Numerical simulation experiments have been carried out to verify the
proposed encryption method using MATLAB 2016 b platform on a PC with
Core (TM) i7-353U processor of 2.5GHz. We first take eight images with
512 × 512 pixels and 256 gray levels as the target images to be encrypted, which
are combined in two multiplex images as shown in Figure 6 (a–h),
respectively. The compression ratio Cp is 0.75 for each multiplex image. The
size of low-pass filter is (M’, M’) = (256, 256) pixels. Results are analyzed more
in terms of statistical attack, di"erential attack, quality of decrypted images,
and speed. We chose the di"erent values as keys of the proposed
cryptosystem:

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 Figure 6.
Plain and combined images. (a–d) Images combined in multiplex image 1, (e–h) images
combined in multiplex image 2, (i) multiplex image 1 before IDCT, (j) multiplex image 1
after IDCT.

x01= 0.351482953177765; x02= 0.972970074275508; r01 = 4.988242173292221;

r02 = 4.909240772131021; xp1 = 0.363606938668312; xp2 = 0.890363879273465;
rp1 = 4.841585120587438; rp2 = 4.738149127386060;α = 6.187.

The size of the filter (M’, M’) and the number of target images N constitute
additional parameters of the key.

3.1 Statistical analysis

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 3.1.1 Histogram

For a well-ciphered image, all the frequencies of pixels must be uniformly

distributed. As one can see in Figure 7, the histogram of the multiplex
encrypted images is uniform.

Figure 7.
Encrypted images and their histograms. (a) Multiplexed image 1, (b) multiplexed image
2.

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 Figure 8.
Plot of correlation coe!cients in horizontal, vertical, and diagonal directions of plain
and cipher cameraman (512 × 512). (a, c, e) correlation coe!cients of plain images in
horizontal, vertical, and diagonal directions respectively. (b, d, f) correlation
coe!cients of ciphered images in horizontal, vertical, and diagonal directions
respectively.

(, )

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 ∑i,j D(i,j)
NPCR = W×H
× 100% E17

[∑ ]
1 |C1 (i,j)−C2 (i,j)|
UACI = W×H 255
× 100% E18
i,j

3.1.2 Correlation analysis

A good cryptosystem produces a cipher image with a correlation coe!cient

close to zero, for two adjacent pixels. Five thousand pairs of adjacent pixels
were chosen to calculate the correlation coe!cients in horizontal, vertical, and
diagonal directions respectively, by using Eq. (17).

K×∑K K 2 K 2
i=1 Xi Yi−∑i=1 Xi ×∑i=1 Yi
Crxy = E19
√ (K×∑K
2 2
i=1 (Xi ) −(∑i=1 Xi ) )×(K×∑i=1 (Yi) −(∑i=1 Yi) )
2 K K 2 K

where X and Y are the values of two adjacent pixels in the image, Crxy belongs
to the range [−1, 1] and K denotes the number of pairs of pixels randomly
selected. Crxy tends to be 1 or − 1 for strong correlation and tends to be 0 for
every poor correlation. Table 2 shows the calculated correlation coe!cient of
512 × 512 cameraman and peppers images in every direction. A mean value of
the proposed encryption algorithm is about 0.0032, which tends to be zero,
which is the expected value. The same result can be confirmed in Figure 8,
where the pixels of encrypted images are not correlated in di"erent directions.
Then, these results prove that attacks based on correlation analysis cannot
succeed on the proposed cryptosystem.

Imageq Test Plain image Encrypted multiplex image 1 or 2

HC 0.9314 0.0023

Cameraman VC 0.9400 0.051

DC 0.8931 −0.003

HC 0.9934 0.0013

Peppers VC 0.9954 −0.0020

DC 0.9919 0.0044

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 Table 2.
Correlation coe!cient.

3.1.3 Information entropy analysis

The information entropy evaluates the level of randomness contained in a

sequence m, and it is defined as follows:

2M −1
S (m) = ∑ p (mi ) log2 ( 1 ) E20
p( ) mi
i=0
where p (mi ) is the probability of the recurrence of element mi and M denotes
the number of bits of information m. The ideal entropy value of a 256-
grayscale image represented on 8 bits with equal probability is 8. Table 3 shows
entropy values of the two multiplex images of the proposed encryption
Chapter sections
algorithm very close to 8, as expected.

Gray image Proposed algorithm [20] (2017) [19] (2017)

SPECIAL
Multiplex image 1 OFFER! 7.9993 — —
Applies to all print copy prices | Offer ends 15 December 2024
Enter the code 20PRINT to unlock the offer
Multiplex image 2 7.9993 7.9993 7.9992

Table 3.
Information entropy of some ciphered images.

3.2 Key analysis

Key space size is the total number of di"erent keys that can be used in an
encryption algorithm. A good encryption algorithm needs to contain
su!ciently large key space to make the brute-force attack infeasible. The high
sensitivity to initial conditions inherent to any chaotic system, that is,
exponential divergence of chaotic trajectories, ensures high security [11].

30

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 In literature, a key space of at least 1030 is required for the system to be robust
[19]. The proposed encryption algorithm actually does have some of the
following secret keys: the initial values x01, x02, xp1, xp2 and control parameters
r01, r02, rp1, rp2 and α of the chaotic systems used; the number N of target
images and the size M ' × M ' of the filter. We suppose that the computer
precision is 10−15, so the key space is greater than 1015 × 9 = 10135. Therefore, this
key space is large enough to resist the brute-force attack. Moreover, key
sensitivity analysis has been carried out, but the results are not presented here
for reasons of space. These results confirm that by changing only one bit in any
parameter of the key, it is not possible to recover the plain images.

3.3 Sensitivity analysis

3.3.1 Di!erential attack analysis

An excellent encryption algorithm should have the desirable property of

spreading the influence of slight change to the plain text over as much of the
cipher text as possible. The sensitivity of a cryptosystem is evaluated through
Number of Pixel Change Rate (NPCR), see Eq. (19), and Unified Average
Change Intensity (UACI), see Eq. (20), criteria, which consist in testing the
influence of one-pixel change of a plain image in the resulting cipher
image.where C1 and C2 are two images with same size W × H . If C1(i, j) #
C2(i, j) C1 (i, j) ≠ C2 (i, j) then D (i, j) = 1D (i, j) = 1 , otherwise, D (i, j) = 0 .

Table 4 gives the measurement of NCPR and UACI between two cipher images
of cameraman, Lena and peppers, when a Least Significant Bit (LSB) changed
on gray value in the last pixel’s position. We can notice that the values obtained
are around the mean of 99.61 for NCPR and 33.49 for UACI. This result shows
that a slight change to the original images will result in a great change in all the
encrypted images. The results also imply that the proposed algorithm has an
excellent ability to resist the di"erential attack.

Image Test

NCPR 99.62

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 Multiplex encrypted image 1
UACI 33.54

NCPR 99.63
Multiplex encrypted image 2
UACI 33.47

Table 4.
NCPR AND UACI measure after a LSB change.

3.3.2 Quality of reconstructed images

As the number of target images to encrypt increases, the quality of recovered

images decreases. In order to reduce the NMSE between plain and decrypted
images and enlarge the number of target images, we grouped them into two
multiplexed images before encryption. To evaluate quantitatively the quality
of decrypted image, we used the normalized mean square error (NMSE)
between the original image and the decrypted image. The NMSE is defined as:

∑N M
i=1 ∑j=1 [ID (i,j)−IE (i,j)]
2
NMSE = E21
∑N M
i=1 ∑j=1 [IE (i,j)]
2

where M × N are the size of the image, ID(i, j) and IE(i, j) are the values of the
decrypted image and the original image at the pixel (i, j), respectively. Table 5
presents the values of NMSE for a set of di"erent target images of size 512 ×
512. From this table, we can observe that for N = 16 target images combined in
one multiplex image, that is, 32 images to encrypt by the proposed
cryptosystem, the NMSE is still low, which attests the good quality of
reconstructed images and good performances of the proposed cryptosystem.

Number of target images (N× 2) 4×2 9×2 16 × 2

NMSE 0.00082 0.0019 0.00376

Table 5.
NMSE for a set of di"erent target images.

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 3.4 Encryption/decryption time

Table 6 reports a comparison of encryption time by the proposed algorithm

with some recent works in literature for di"erent images. The algorithm
written under Matlab platform was not optimized. The computer time
consumption is 0.27389 s, which is smaller than those of [19, 24].

Number of images Proposed algorithm [19] (2017) [20] (2017) [24] 2016

08 or 09, size 512 × 512 0.27389 0.7103 0.191 11.66

Table 6.
Encryption time in seconds.

3.5 Comparison with other encryption algorithms

The performance of the proposed algorithm compared to similar and good

standing ones in literature is shown in Table 7. From the table, we can observe
that the proposed encryption algorithm has a large key space and can encrypt a
large number of target images in a good time compared to others. As for UACI
and NPCR, they are about the best values expected (respectively >33.3 for
UACI and >99.6 for NPCR) as can be seen in the table. Finally, our
cryptosystem exhibits the best correlation value and a reduced normalized
Mean Square Error (MSE) after decryption step.

Key Average Encryption

Entropy NPCR UACI NMSE
space correlation time (s)

Proposed 3.7 ×
10135 0.0032 7.9993 99.61 33.49 0.27389
algorithm 10−3

Ref. [19] [2017] 1060 0.003 7.9994 99.62 33.50 0.7103 —

Ref. [20] [2017] 1056 — 7.8225 — — 0.255 —

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 8.448 ×
Ref. [24] [2016] 1090 — — — — 11.66
10−3

Ref. [14] [2015] 2260 0.0032 — 99.92 — — ≈0

Ref. [25] [2018] 10210 0.0031 7.9986 99.62 33.42 2.386 0.0155

Table 7.
Comparison of the proposed cryptosystem with others.

A DV E RT I S E M E N T

4. Conclusion
In this chapter, an image encryption algorithm based on spectral fusion of
multiple watermarked images and new chaotic generators is proposed.
Logistic-May (LM), Gaussian-Gompertz (GG), and May-Gaussian (MG)
systems were used as chaotic generators in the processes of confusion and
di"usion. The target images were firstly combined in two multiplex images of
same size through DCT and a low-pass filter. Secondly, the previous images are
scrambled by permuting the blocks size of (4 × 4 ) of each multiplex image.
Finally, the later scrambled images are fused by a nonlinear mathematical
expression based on Cramer’s rule to obtain two hybrid encrypted images. At
the decryption step, the watermark hidden in one of the target images is
recovered without loss of information. The evaluation metrics of the proposed
cryptosystem NCPR, UACI, correlation coe!cient, entropy, key space, and
NMSE, are among the best values in literature. More interestingly, the
proposed cryptosystem can encrypt 32 target images simultaneously with a
small NMSE ≈ 4.16 × 10−3 ≈ 3.7 × 10−3, and encrypted images are sensitive
to the key. The proposed encryption algorithm can surely guarantee security
and speed of all types of digital data (text and images) transfer in a digital
network.

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 A DV E RT I S E M E N T

Acknowledgments
This work was partly supported by ERMIT, Entrepreneurship, Resources,
Management, Innovation and Technologies.

A DV E RT I S E M E N T

Conflict of interest
The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

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W R I T T E N BY
Lee Mariel Heucheun Yepdia, Alain Tiedeu and Zied Lachiri

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 Submitted: 29 February 2020 , Reviewed: 03 April 2020 , Published: 30 June 2020

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