National Conference on Communication Technology & Network Security In association with

International Journal of Scientific Research in Computer Science, Engineering and Information Technology
© 2019 IJSRCSEIT | Volume 4 | Issue 7 | ISSN : 2456-3307
A Survey on Image Encryption Techniques
Vishwas C.G.M1, Dr. R Sanjeev Kunte2
1 Assistant Professor Department of IS&E, J.N.N College of Engineering, Shivamogga, Karnataka, India
2Professor, Department of CS & E, J.N.N College of Engineering, Shivamogga, Karnataka, India

ABSTRACT
Security of data/images is one of the important aspects and it is still an expanding domain of digital transfer.
Encryption of images is one of the well known mechanisms to preserve the secrecy of images over the Internet.
This medium is vulnerable to attacks and hence efficient encryption algorithms are necessary for securely
transmitting the data. Various techniques have been proposed in literature to cope up the ever growing need of
security. This paper is an effort to compare the most popular techniques available for image encryption.
Keywords : Encryption, Decryption, Cryptography.

I. INTRODUCTION Encryption is defined as the conversion of plain text

into a form called a cipher text that cannot be read by
With the increasing growth of multimedia others without decrypting the encrypted text.
applications, security is an important issue in Decryption is the reverse process of encryption which
transmission of multimedia data. The main aim of is the process of converting the cipher text into its
image encryption is to transmit the image securely original plain text, so that it can be read [1]. In order
over the network so that no unauthorized user can be to fulfill such a task, many image encryption methods
able to decrypt the image. Therefore the information have been proposed in the literature.
has to be protected while transmitting it. Important
information such as credit cards and banking There are two main types of cryptography: 1.Secret
transactions need to be secured. For this reason, many key cryptography and 2.Public key cryptography.
techniques exist which are Image encryption, video Secret key cryptography is also known as symmetric
encryption, chaos based encryption that have their key cryptography. Here, both the sender and the
have applications in many fields including the medical receiver have the information regarding the same
imaging, internet communication, transmission, secret key. Messages are encrypted by the sender using
military communication, tele-medicine etc. the key and decrypted by the receiver using the same
Encryption techniques are very useful tools to protect key.
secret information. In this paper we survey on
different techniques for image encryption.

This paper is organized as follows. In Section 1; we

present general guide line about cryptography. In

We Survey on already existing work. Finally, we

conclude in section 3. Fig 1. A simple model of symmetric key encryption

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Fig 1 shows the process of symmetric cryptography. II. LITERATURE SURVEY

Both parties agree on the secret key that both of them Aloka Sinha and Kehar Singh [2] proposed the digital
will use in this connection. Sender starts sending its signature based image encryption scheme. First the
data encrypted with the shared key. On the other hand, original image is encoded and digital signature is added
receiver uses the same key to decrypt the encrypted to the original image. Bose- Chaudhuri
message. Hochquenghem (BCH) type of code is used for
Public key cryptography, also called asymmetric key encoding of the image. After the decryption of the
cryptography, uses a pair of keys for encryption and image, digital signature is used for authentication of
decryption as shown in Fig. 2. Where as in public key the image and digital signatures are created and
cryptography, keys work in pairs of matched public verified by means of cryptography. One-way hash
and private keys. function was used to produce the digital signature of
an image. Standard digital image algorithms were used
to convert a message of any length into a fixed length
message digest which is usually 128 bits long. MD2,
MD4, MD5 and Secure Hash Algorithm (SHA) are the
standard techniques for creating hash. This encryption
technique provides three layers of security.

S.Vani Kumari and G.Neelima [3] proposed the image

encryption by using Chaotic Logistic Map and Arnold
Fig 2. Asymmetric encryption Cat Map. In this scheme, first block based shuffling is
Nowadays when sensitive information is stored on performed using Arnold cat transformation. After
computers and transmitted over the Internet, safety block based shuffling, pixel shuffling is performed by
and security of information must be ensured. using certain number of iterations of Arnold cat map.
Considering this, image is also an important part of The Arnold cat map is used to change the positions of
information. Therefore it is very important to protect the blocks/pixel values of the original image. The
the image from unauthorized access. shuffled image contain the same pixel values as that of
the original image. To encrypt the pixels of an image,
eight different types of operations are used and which
operation should be used is decided by the logistic map.
It is concluded that chaos-based image encryption
technology is very useful for real-time secure image.
Fig 3. Image encryption process
Fig 3 shows a general image encryption process using Mohammad Ali Bani Younes and Arnan Jantan [4]
any image encryption algorithm and the resultant proposed an image encryption using block-based
encrypted image. Decryption is the reverse process of transformation algorithm. A block-based
encryption which gives back the original image. There transformation algorithm along with blowfish
exists many algorithms in the literature to protect algorithm is used for encryption and decryption. First
image from unauthorized access which is described in the original image is divided into blocks and then it is
the next section. rearranged into a transformed image using a
transformation algorithm. Later, blowfish algorithm is
used for encryption. It is observed that increasing the

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number of blocks by using smaller block sizes resulted if the key matrix is not invertible then it may not be
in a lower correlation and higher entropy. possible to decrypt the encrypted message. Also, as it
Experimental results showed that a direct relationship is not required to find inverse of the matrix for
exists between number of blocks and entropy. And an decryption, the computational complexity can be
inverse relationship exists between number of blocks reduced.
and correlation.
Sesha Pallavi Indrakanti and P.S.Avadhani [7]
A Combination of Permutation Technique for image proposed Permutation based Image Encryption
encryption was proposed by Mohammad Ali Bani Technique in which image encryption based on
Younes and Aman Jantan [5]. This approach depends random pixel permutation exists. In this technique,
on the concept that, in natural images the values of the first for image encryption, image is split into blocks,
neighboring pixels are strongly correlated. This means later permutation is applied based on random number.
that the value of any given pixel can be reasonably Next, in the key generation phase, a key is built by
predicted from the values of its neighbors. It is using the values used in the encryption process. The
necessary to disturb the high correlation among image last stage is where the identification process is
pixels to increase the security level of the encrypted involved in the numbering of the shares which are
images. Here, a new permutation technique is generated from the secret image. These shares and the
introduced based on the combination of image key are then sent to the receiver. The key is generated
permutation and an encryption algorithm called with valid information about the values used in the
RijnDael. Here the original image is divided into 4 encryption process which is a unique one from others.
pixels × 4 pixels blocks, which are then rearranged into A new image encryption technique based on a new
a permuted image by using a permutation process. The chaotic system by adding two chaotic systems: the
permutation process is defined as the operation of Lorenz chaotic system and the Rössler chaotic system
dividing and replacing an arrangement of the original was proposed by Qais H. Alsafasfeh and Aouda A.
image. The results show that the correlation between Arfoa [8]. The main strength of this technique is that
image elements is significantly decreased by using the it provides stronger security. Data encryption standard
combination technique which leads to higher entropy. (DES) is not useful for image encryption because of the
This technique enhances the security level of the special storage characteristics of an image.
encrypted images by reducing the correlation among Experimental analysis shows that the image
image elements and increasing its entropy value by encryption algorithm has the advantages of high speed,
decreasing the mutual information among the large key space, high- level security and high obscure
encrypted image variables. level.

Bibhudendra Acharya et.al.[6] proposed an Image Ibrahim S I Abuhaiba and Maaly A S Hassan [9]
encryption using Advanced Hill Cipher Algorithm. describe an Image Encryption using Differential
The available Hill cipher algorithm is classified as a Evolution Approach in Frequency Domain. This
symmetric key algorithm. The proposed advanced Hill scheme employs magnitude and phase manipulation
(AdvHill) encryption technique uses an involuntary using Differential Evolution (DE) approach. First the
key matrix which overcomes the problem of two dimensional keyed discrete Fourier transform is
encrypting the images with homogeneous background. performed on the original image. Then Crossover is
It also overcomes the drawback of using a random key performed between two components of the encrypted
matrix in Hill cipher algorithm for encryption, where image, which are selected based on Linear Feedback

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Shift Register (LFSR) index generator. Keyed mutation Huang-PeiXiao and Guo-ji Zang [13] describe an
will be performed on the real parts of a certain algorithm using two chaotic systems . One chaotic
components selected based on LFSR index generator. system generates a chaotic sequence, which changes
In this process, shuffling of the positions of image into a binary stream using a threshold function. The
pixels is done. Final encrypted image is found to be other chaotic system is used to construct a
fully distorted increasing the robustness of the said permutation matrix. Firstly, using the binary stream as
scheme. a key stream, randomly the pixel values of the images
is modified. Then, the modified image is encrypted
Nidhal Khdhair El Abbadi et.al., [10] proposed new again by the permutation matrix.
image encryption algorithm based on Diffie- Hellman
and Singular Value Decomposition. In the proposed Amitava Nag et.al, [14] introduced a novel approach
work, they have suggested a new way to encrypt image using affine transform which is based on shuffling the
based on three main steps: the first one aims to image pixels. This method is a two phase encryption
scrambling the image values by using Fibonacci decryption algorithm. Firstly using XOR operation,
transform. The second step focuses on generating the image is encrypted. Then, the pixel values are
public and private key based on Diffie - Hellman Key redistributed to different locations with 4 bit keys
Exchange which are used encrypt the diagonal matrix using the affine transformation. The transformed
that is created by Singular Value image is then divided into 2 pixels x 2 pixels blocks and
Decomposition (SVD) in third step. The experimental each block is encrypted using XOR operation by four
results show that the proposed image encryption 8-bit keys. The result proves that the correlation
system has a very large key space. Also the proposed between pixel values was significantly decreased after
image encryption algorithm analysis proves better in the affine transform.
case of the security, robustness, correctness and
effectiveness. A mirror like algorithm is presented by Jiun-In Guo
and Jui-Cheng Yen [15]. There are 7 steps in this
S.S. Maniccam and N.G. Bourbakis [11] have presented algorithm. At first, 1-D chaotic system is determined
a novel approach which based on two works: lossless and its initial point x (0) and set k = 0. Then, from the
compression and encryption of binary and gray-scale chaotic system, the chaotic sequence is generated.
pictures. The compression and encryption methods After that, the binary sequence is generated from
are based on the SCAN methodology which is a formal chaotic system. Image pixels are rearranged in the last
language-based 2D spatial-accessing methodologies four stages using swap function according to the
that generate a wide range of scanning paths or space binary sequence.
filling curves.
Seyed Mohammad Seyedzade, et.al., [16] proposed a
Chang-Mok Shin et.al.,[12] proposed an algorithm novel algorithm based on SHA-512 hash function. The
which was multilevel form of image encryption using algorithm had two sections. Firstly, it does pre-
binary phase exclusive OR operation and image processing operation to shuffle one half of image. Then
dividing technique. The same grey level multi-level the hash function is applied to generate a random
image is divided into binary images. Then binary number mask. Then, the mask is XORed with the
pictures are regenerated to binary phase other part of the image that is to be encrypted.
encoding.Then these images are encrypt with binary
random phase images by binary phase XOR operation.

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Ismail Amr Ismail et.al.,[17] proposed a chaos- based security functions which might be suitable in some
stream cipher which composes of two chaotic logistic applications so that no one can carry unauthorized
maps and it also consists of an external secret key for access on the image while transferring the image on
encryption of image. In this scheme, an external secret the open network. In general, a well-suited, fast and
key of 104 bit and two chaotic logistic maps are used secure conventional cryptosystem should be chosen so
to differentiate between the plain image and the as to provide high security.
encrypted image. Further, the secret key is modified
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