Text Encryption Based on Huffman Coding and ElGamal Cryptosystem

Abstract

Background: Data that are in the form of text, audio, image, and video are used everywhere in our modern scientific world. These data are stored in physical storage, cloud storage and other storage devices. Some of these data are very sensitive and require efficient security while storing as well as in transmitting from the sender to the receiver. Objective: With the increase in data transfer operation, enough space is also required to store these data. Many researchers have been working to develop different encryption schemes, yet there exist many limitations in their works. There is always a need for encryption schemes with smaller cipher data, faster execution time and low computation cost. Methods: A text encryption based on Huffman coding and ElGamal cryptosystem is proposed. Initially, the text data is converted into its corresponding binary bits using Huffman coding. Next, the binary bits are grouped and again converted into large integer values which will be used as the input for the ElGamal cryptosystem. Results: Encryption and Decryption are successfully performed where the data size is reduced using Huffman coding and advance security with the smaller key size is provided by the ElGamal cryptosystem. Conclusion: Simulation results and performance analysis specify that our encryption algorithm is better than the existing algorithms under consideration.