A real-time one-time pad DNA-chaos image encryption algorithm based on multiple keys

Abstract

Image encryption is an important necessity when sharing data over public networks, and many image encryption algorithms have been proposed for the task. However, most of these algorithms are complex and slow. We propose a real-time one-time pad DNA-chaos image encryption algorithm using multiple keys. The proposed encryption algorithm uses a greatly simplified mechanism and a large, unpredictable sequence to encrypt the image. Our algorithm has three main advantages. First, its reliance on the original image for four of the keys makes it sensitive to changes in the original image. Small changes in the image produce large changes in the keys, making the algorithm resistant to differential attacks. Second, we integrate the natural DNA sequence into the process of generating the key, and the algorithm uses the massive DNA sequences stored in the DNA gene bank to solve the problem that it is difficult to store one-time pad. The keys have the property of one-time pad, and the key space is considerablely large. Finally, our algorithm encrypts quickly enough to make it suitable for real-time applications. On the premise of ensuring that the results of this paper are not worse than those of the comparison literature in other performance indicators, in terms of encryption time, even if we use a computing environment that is worse than all the comparison literature computer configurations, the algorithm of this paper can still save at least 14%–86%. As the picture size becomes larger, the advantages of the algorithm in this paper are more obvious.