A new method of image encryption using advanced encryption Standard (AES) for network security

Abstract

With the rapid increase in the use of technology, images have become a major source of sharing personal, confidential and official information and there is a dire need to protect this secret data. Image encryption plays major role in the security of images and there are many techniques developed for this purpose. Chaos based image encryption has now become most applicable and beneficial technique for image encryption. The purpose of this paper is to highlight a new method of image encryption with the use of advanced encryption standard (AES) and chaotic maps. This technique is composed of substitution and permutation phases. AES is found to be most secure cipher until now against different kinds of attacks. The round keys are generated by AES using key expansion algorithm. The sensitivity of this technique is that it is dependent on initial values and input image. S-boxes in AES introduce non-linearity, confusion, and an avalanche effect, enhancing security and resistance to cryptographic attacks by substituting bytes in the encryption process. The combination of AES and chaotic maps in encryption schemes provides a two-tiered approach to enhance security. AES offers a strong and well-established encryption method, while chaotic maps introduce randomness and complexity, making it more difficult for attackers to decipher encrypted data. This combination is often used to achieve a higher level of encryption security in various applications, including data transmission and storage. Different kinds of analysis and tests are performed on the technique which includes information entropy, number of pixel change rate (NPCR), and peak signal-to-noise ratio (PSNR), unified average changing intensity (UACI) and histogram correlation of adjacent pixels. The results of these tests show that this technique is secure and resistant towards attacks.