Analysis of Different Encryption Techniques used in Watermarking Algorithm for the Security of Medical Image

Abstract

Today, in the computerized age, the development and use of internet technology in healthcare has been increasing rapidly. Quick improvement is going on in the telemedicine field with a clear goal to design integrated applications in diagnostics and treatment. Hence medical images are preserved in databases for some time so that post diagnosis treatment will become easier for the patient and for doctors as well. During the process of the treatment patients tend to take experts' advice and that time images of the reports will be shared from one hospital to another. With the use of sharing and transmission technique post treatment cost gets reduced whereas increases the issue concerning the security of patients medical reports. It is important to keep track of images shared between two medical centers to identify sources of image generation as well as protecting patient's sensitive information from intruders or hackers against unauthorized access and modification. Digital watermarking can be used to provide ownership and copyright protection. In the watermarking system image or text can be inserted in the cover image to get a watermarked image. The watermark image or secret image to be inserted can be protected with encryption technique. Hence this paper presents a digital watermarking system designed with encryption techniques to provide security to patients' medical records. The system is evaluated by implementing it with various encryption techniques like Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) with 256 bits, AES-GCM, Triple Data Encryption Standard (TDES), Blowfish etc. The performance of the system is measured with PSNR and SSIM and assessment of the evaluation parameters shows that AES encryption is better in comparison with TDES and Blowfish.