An efficient Intra-Inter pixel encryption scheme to secure healthcare images for an IoT environment

Abstract

Digital images are being frequently used for diagnosis in clinics today. Diagnostic images with identifying patient data are stored and transmitted across open networks. Security measures are therefore becoming more and more crucial to safeguard the confidentiality of sensitive patient data. In medical imaging, adjacent pixels show a strong degree of connection. This paper presents an efficient intra-inter bit-level pixel operation-based image encryption method that eliminates pixel correlation and provides strong security. In this method, after gathering medical image data from IoT sensors, the intra bit-level pixel permutation and diffusion operations are executed separately and in parallel in each of the bit planes, and the inter bit-level pixel permutation and diffusion operations are then performed in the concatenated bit-planes. The bit-level operation not only permutes but also diffuses the pixels at the same time. As a result, the security of the algorithm is increased by executing several pixel permutations and diffusions. In addition to this, the approach is effective due to the parallel execution of bit-plane permutation and diffusion. The simulation results and the security analysis indicate the superior performance of the proposed algorithm.