A Reversible Watermarking and Encryption for ensuring the Authenticity, Integrity and Protection of Medical Images

Abstract

For various purposes such as diagnosis, consultation between clinicians and radiologists, expert opinion from a doctor in another country, and treatment, the medical images are transmitted from one place to another. The medical images may be exposed to unauthorized sources during transmission, and may get modified deliberately or accidentally. Such changes to the diagnostic images may result in a misdiagnosis. False diagnosis can lead to serious repercussions. Hence, authenticity and integrity of the image should be checked and its security should be assured. To achieve this, watermarking is used in the proposed method, in conjunction with encryption. The watermark is created and inserted into the medical image’s region of non interest (NROI). The watermarked image is then encrypted to ensure that it is confidential. The encrypted medical image is decrypted and the embedded watermark is retrieved upon reaching the receiving hand. The image authenticity and integrity verification is then performed.