Special ciphertext-only attack to double random phase encryption by plaintext shifting with speckle correlation.

Abstract

In this paper, a special ciphertext-only attack (COA) scenario to the traditional double random phase encoding (DRPE) technique is proposed based on plaintext shifting. We assume the attacker can illegally manipulate the DRPE system to gain multiple ciphertexts from randomly shifted versions of the same plaintext. The plaintext image can be recovered when our proposed scenario is combined with a speckle correlation attacking method proposed in previous work. Simulation results demonstrate that our proposed scheme can successfully crack the DRPE system even when the speckle correlation method alone fails to work in the conventional single ciphertext scenario due to the small size of the plaintext image. The work in this paper reveals a severe security flaw of DRPE systems when minor position shifting of the plaintext occurs.