An Image Mathcrypt - A Flawless Security via Flawed Image

Abstract

The present scenario of the medical field is that sending the healthcare images through the internet is so far exposed to security threats. Hence, there is a need for an efficient and secure procedure to exchange healthcare images over the Internet. The Digital Image and Communication in Medicine (DICOM) provides security features for image header information but not for the pixel information. Hence to send the pixel information in a highly secured manner, the pixels need to be encrypted by using a suitable encryption algorithm. The number of pixel changing rate (NPCR) and the unified averaged changed intensity (UACI) are well-known encryption evaluation metrics to analyse the differential attack in image encryption. These two values are used to calculate the average number of pixel changes and intensity changes between two encrypted images before and after modifying any one pixel in a plaintext image respectively. If these two values are high, then the image encryption can resist the differential attacks. In this paper, a theoretical value of NPCR and UACI are computed for DICOM image encryption concerning different significant levels. An encryption algorithm with Gould transform, RC5, logistic map and DNA Diffusion is proposed for DICOM image to increase the NPCR, and UACI value and this method offered an efficient security strategy for DICOM pixel information. Finally, the computed theoretical value of NPCR and UACI are compared with the existing and proposed algorithm.