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A live case study of a department-wide paper-mill at Edinburgh Napier University
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edinburg-napier-academic-fraud.md

Systematic Academic Fraud in Visual Encryption Research: A Case Study in Paper Mill Detection

The pressure to publish in academic environments has created perverse incentives that can drive researchers toward unethical practices. Paper mills - commercial operations that produce fraudulent academic manuscripts - exploit these pressures by offering researchers ready-made publications for career advancement. While the existence of paper mills has been documented across various disciplines, their infiltration into cryptographic research presents particular concerns given the security-critical nature of the field. The systematic production of low-quality or fraudulent cryptographic research not only pollutes the academic literature but potentially undermines confidence in legitimate security research and implementations.

Within the broader field of cryptography, "visual encryption" has emerged as a particularly problematic subdomain that appears to attract paper mill activity. Unlike established areas such as symmetric or public-key cryptography with their rigorous theoretical foundations, visual encryption encompasses loosely defined techniques for hiding information in images using chaos theory, cellular automata, and biologically-inspired encoding schemes. The interdisciplinary nature of this area - spanning cryptography, image processing, and information theory - creates review gaps where papers can be published without proper scrutiny. The visual appeal of scrambled images and the apparent novelty of combining chaotic maps with DNA encoding make these papers superficially impressive while often lacking fundamental security analysis or proper foundations.

Previous investigations have identified paper mill operations through analysis of publication patterns, author networks, and methodological similarities across seemingly independent research. Notable cases include the Russian "International Publisher" mill and large-scale retractions at publishers like Hindawi. Detection methods typically focus on identifying template-based manuscript production, impossible research productivity timelines, and statistical anomalies in reported experimental results. However, most documented cases have involved biomedical research, making the systematic investigation of paper mill activity within computer science and cryptographic research relatively underexplored territory.

From Rigorous Foundations to Pseudoscientific Chaos

Visual cryptography, as introduced by Naor and Shamir in 1994, represents a mathematically rigorous approach to secret sharing using visual media. Their scheme splits a secret image into multiple "shares" that individually appear as random noise but reveal the hidden image when physically overlaid. This construction relies on carefully designed pixel expansion patterns and Boolean operations, with formal security proofs demonstrating that individual shares leak no information about the secret. The elegant property that decryption requires only human vision - no computational operations - this makes visual cryptography a legitimate and well-studied area of research with clear theoretical foundations and practical applications in scenarios requiring simple, tamper-evident secret sharing.

However, the term "visual encryption" has been increasingly co-opted to describe a collection of ad-hoc image scrambling techniques that bear little resemblance to Naor-Shamir visual cryptography or established cryptographic principles. These contemporary approaches typically combine chaotic maps (logistic, Henon, tent maps) with biological metaphors (DNA encoding, RNA operations) and buzzword-heavy descriptors ("quantum chaos," "cellular automata encryption") to create systems that prioritize visual complexity over cryptographic security. Rather than providing formal security definitions or proofs, these schemes rely on statistical measures like image entropy and pixel correlation to claim security - metrics that measure randomness appearance rather than resistance to cryptanalytic attack. The resulting literature is characterized by recycled methodological templates, impossible productivity rates, and a systematic absence of the rigorous security analysis that defines legitimate cryptographic research.

The Template Formula for Manufacturing Visual Encryption Papers

Analysis of the fraudulent literature reveals a highly systematized approach to paper production that follows a predictable template. This formula allows for rapid generation of seemingly novel research while requiring minimal actual innovation or experimental work. The template consists of several interchangeable components that can be recombined to create the appearance of independent research contributions.

Every paper follows the identical confusion-diffusion framework borrowed from legitimate cryptography but implemented through ad-hoc combinations of chaotic maps. The "diffusion" phase typically involves pixel scrambling using geometric patterns (block permutation, spiral extraction, snake-like traversal) guided by chaotic sequences. The "confusion" phase applies bitwise XOR operations between the scrambled image and matrices generated from different chaotic maps. This two-stage approach is presented as novel regardless of the specific chaotic maps employed, allowing the same fundamental structure to be recycled indefinitely.

The template draws from a fixed library of elements that can be mixed and matched: chaotic maps (logistic, Henon, tent, skew tent), biological metaphors (DNA encoding with arbitrary base-pair mappings, RNA operations), geometric scrambling patterns (L-shape, U-shape, spiral, zigzag), and trendy application domains (IoT security, healthcare data protection, edge computing). Authors systematically cycle through these components, creating titles like "Novel DNA-Based Chaotic Image Encryption for IoT Applications" by simply selecting different elements from each category. The biological encoding typically involves meaningless mappings between pixel values and genetic sequences, while the IoT applications are mentioned only in abstracts and introductions without any actual implementation or deployment considerations.

All papers report nearly identical statistical results regardless of the underlying methodology: information entropy values consistently around 7.999, correlation coefficients near zero (typically -0.001 to 0.001), and NPCR/UACI values of approximately 99.6% and 33.5% respectively. These suspiciously consistent results across dozens of "independent" experiments suggest either systematic data fabrication or the reuse of a single experimental dataset across multiple papers - or a fundamental and damningly comprehensive misunderstanding. The evaluation methodology remains constant - always testing on the same standard images (Camera man, Baboon, Peppers) with identical security metrics, despite claims of novel algorithmic contributions that should produce varying performance characteristics.

The Fraud Formula

The template reduces to a simple equation: Buzzwords + Pseudorandom Scrambling + Invertible Chaos = Fraudulent Paper

A (Buzzword Bingo): Authors systematically cycle through trendy keywords extracted from legitimate research areas. Recent abstracts demonstrate the pattern: "IoT and Edge Networks," "Post-Quantum Consumer Technology," "Industrial Internet-of-Things," "Smart Healthcare Systems." These terms serve no functional purpose in the actual methodology but ensure the papers appear in contemporary search results and attract editorial attention from journals seeking relevant content.

+ B (Entropy Theater): The "key generation" phase involves applying chaotic maps (logistic, Henon, tent, quantum, DNA etc.) to produce sequences that are claimed to have cryptographic properties based solely on statistical randomness tests. This constitutes the "confusion" step - though the confusion appears to be primarily in the authors' understanding of cryptographic security. Entropy measurements are presented as security proofs, conflating statistical randomness with cryptographic strength, a fundamental error that would be caught by any competent cryptographic reviewer.

+ C (Invertible Scrambling) The core operation involves pixel rearrangement using geometric patterns (snake permutation, spiral extraction, block permutation) combined with XOR operations against the chaotic sequences. The authors invoke cryptographic terminology like "S-boxes" and "substitution-permutation networks" to describe ad-hoc scrambling operations that bear no resemblance to their cryptographic namesakes. The only mathematical requirement is that the scrambling function remains invertible - a property so basic that it's equivalent to requiring that decryption is possible. Even this minimal requirement is rarely formally demonstrated, with papers providing about as much mathematical rigor as a soggy biscuit.

= F(raud): The combination produces papers that superficially resemble cryptographic research while containing no actual cryptographic content, security analysis, or mathematical insight.

From Theory to Practice - A Live Case Study

We have identified a comprehensive example of template-based fraud that became institutionalized within the School of Computing at Edinburgh Napier University starting in 2020. While the fraudulent methodology was developed by Jawad Ahmad across multiple institutions from 2014-2020, our analysis reveals that Napier provided the institutional protection and systematic expansion that transformed individual misconduct into coordinated paper mill operations. Since 2020, this has involved the systematic production of fraudulent visual encryption research by multiple faculty members and students within a single academic department, with approximately five researchers rotating as co-authors under senior academic protection. The operation demonstrates all the hallmarks of organized academic fraud:

  • impossible research productivity
  • template-based methodologies
  • fabricated experimental results, and
  • institutional protection enabling continued misconduct.

Those impossible publication dates are forensic evidence of fraud. March 13, 2025 - two papers published the same day. July 11, 2024 - two more. December 27-30, 2024 - papers published 3 days apart. This isn't academic productivity; it's industrial assembly-line fraud.

The fraud network operates through a clear hierarchical structure with Professor William J. Buchanan (OBE, FRSE) as department head providing institutional cover, senior faculty members Ahmed Al-Dubai and Nikolaos Pitropakis serving as supervisors, lecturer Jawad Ahmad coordinating production, and PhD student Muhammad Shahbaz Khan functioning as the current primary author factory. This arrangement exploits academic power structures to enable systematic fraud while distributing responsibility across multiple participants, making detection and accountability more difficult.

However, the origin of this particular fraud traces its roots back to Jawad Ahmad in 2014. The following timeline demonstrates the systematic nature of this operation, with particular attention to periods of impossible research productivity where multiple "independent" papers were produced within days or hours of each other:

  • 2025
    • May 1: A Novel Feature-Aware Chaotic Image Encryption Scheme For Data Security and Privacy in IoT and Edge Networks
    • March 13:
      • A Chaotic Image Encryption Scheme Using Novel Geometric Block Permutation and Dynamic Substitution
      • X-Cross: Image Encryption Featuring Novel Dual-Layer Block Permutation and Dynamic Substitution Techniques
  • 2024
    • December 30: Image Encryption Using DNA Encoding, Snake Permutation and Chaotic Substitution Techniques
    • December 27: Secure Image Encryption Using Dynamic Block Segmentation and Adaptive Pixel Modification with Chaotic Masking
    • August: A novel medical image data protection scheme for smart healthcare system
    • July 11:
      • VisCrypt: Image Encryption Featuring Novel Chaotic Key Generation and Block Permutation Techniques with Visual Cryptography
      • Image Encryption Using A Novel Orbital-Extraction Permutation Technique and Chaotic Key Generation
    • June 17:
      • Chaotic Quantum Encryption to Secure Image Data in Post Quantum Consumer Technology
      • Image Encryption in Frequency Domain Using Hybrid Chaotic Maps, Hashing, and Lifting Wavelet Transform
    • January 9: RNA-TransCrypt: Image Encryption Using Chaotic RNA Encoding, Novel Transformative Substitution, and Tailored Cryptographic Operations
    • January 1: A Novel Cosine-Modulated-Polynomial Chaotic Map to Strengthen Image Encryption Algorithms in IoT Environments
  • 2023
    • November 6: PermutEx: Feature-Extraction-Based Permutation — A New Diffusion Scheme for Image Encryption Algorithms
    • October 27: SRSS: A New Chaos-Based Single-Round Single S-Box Image Encryption Scheme for Highly Auto-Correlated Data
    • October 10:
      • Noise-Crypt: Image Encryption with Non-linear Noise, Hybrid Chaotic Maps, and Hashing
      • CellSecure: Securing Image Data in Industrial Internet-of-Things via Cellular Automata and Chaos-Based Encryption
    • February 23: A DNA Based Colour Image Encryption Scheme Using A Convolutional Autoencoder
    • January 1: A new S-Box design system for data encryption using artificial bee colony algorithm
  • 2022
    • June 22: A Novel Chaos-based Light-weight Image Encryption Scheme
  • 2020
    • Stepmber 1: DNA and Plaintext Dependent Chaotic Visual Selective Image Encryption
    • July 29: Chaos-Based Confusion and Diffusion of Image Pixels Using Dynamic Substitution
    • February 10: A Novel Multi-Chaos Based Compressive Sensing Encryption Technique
  • 2019
    • February: A novel chaos-based partial image encryption scheme using Lifting Wavelet Transform
    • April 1: Chaos based efficient selective image encryption
  • 2018
    • December: A novel image encryption scheme based on orthogonal matrix, skew tent map, and XOR operation
    • November: Visual meaningful encryption scheme using intertwinning logistic map
    • September:
      • DNA sequence based medical image encryption scheme
      • Secure occupancy monitoring system for iot using lightweight intertwining logistic map
      • Real-time lightweight chaotic encryption for 5g iot enabled lip-reading driven secure hearing-aid
    • August: Intertwining and nca maps based new image encryption scheme
  • 2017
    • December:
      • A novel image encryption based on Lorenz equation, Gingerbreadman chaotic map and S8 permutation
      • A compression sensing and noise-tolerant image encryption scheme based on chaotic maps and orthogonal matrices
    • November: An improved image encryption scheme based on a non-linear chaotic algorithm and substitution boxes
    • September: A new technique for designing 8×8 substitution box for image encryption applications
    • April: Secure speech communication algorithm via DCT and TD-ERCS chaotic map
    • March: An efficient and secure partial image encryption for wireless multimedia sensor networks using discrete wavelet transform, chaotic maps and substitution box
  • 2016:
    • November: A secure image encryption scheme based on chaotic maps and affine transformation
    • April: TD-ERCS map-based confusion and diffusion of autocorrelated data
    • March: A new image encryption scheme based on dynamic s-boxes and chaotic maps
  • 2015
    • December:
      • A new chaos-based secure image encryption scheme using multiple substitution boxes
      • Chaos-based diffusion for highly autocorrelated data in encryption algorithms
    • September: An experimental comparison of chaotic and non-chaotic image encryption schemes
    • May 27: An efficient image encryption scheme based on: Henon map, skew tent map and S-Box
  • 2014
    • December 8: Comparative analysis of chaotic and non-chaotic image encryption schemes

The temporal clustering of publications, combined with identical methodological templates and consistent statistical results across all papers, provides compelling evidence of systematic coordination rather than independent research efforts. The involvement of multiple department members across different academic ranks demonstrates institutional complicity, while the eleven-year duration shows this is not isolated misconduct but sustained academic fraud operating under departmental protection.

Please note, we are keeping track of more links in a spreadsheet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1bghWelMu9LtK7iRCIAMmY8oPwSrI2O7xYfniHzeu1og/edit?usp=sharing

The Emperor's New Cryptography

After eleven years of operation, this paper mill has produced dozens of publications that have collectively contributed precisely nothing to the field of cryptography. Despite claims of "novel" contributions, "enhanced security," and "robust encryption," the entire body of work represents an elaborate exercise in academic theater - cryptographic research that exists only on paper, with no meaningful security properties, no theoretical contributions, and no practical applications.

The most damning aspect of this fraud is not merely its scale or duration, but its complete intellectual bankruptcy. These are not failed attempts at genuine research or misguided explorations of cryptographic concepts. They are systematic fabrications designed to simulate the appearance of scholarship while avoiding the substance entirely. The authors have managed to publish dozens of papers on cryptographic topics without ever engaging with cryptography itself.

It is crucial to emphasize that this fraud network represents a localized corruption within Edinburgh Napier University's School of Computing, not a reflection of the department's entire research output. Many faculty members and researchers within the same institution conduct legitimate, high-quality research that contributes meaningfully to computer science and cybersecurity. The existence of this paper mill operation should not overshadow or diminish the valuable work being done by honest researchers who maintain the integrity and standards that define genuine academic scholarship.

However, that this systematic fraud flourished for over a decade under institutional oversight raises serious questions about research integrity mechanisms and the protection of legitimate researchers whose reputations may be damaged by association. The challenge now is ensuring accountability for those involved in fraudulent activities while preserving and supporting the genuine research excellence that continues within the broader academic community.

Paper Abstracts

A Novel Feature-Aware Chaotic Image Encryption Scheme For Data Security and Privacy in IoT and Edge Networks

The security of image data in the Internet of Things (IoT) and edge networks is crucial due to the increasing deployment of intelligent systems for real-time decision-making. Traditional encryption algorithms such as AES and RSA are com- putationally expensive for resource-constrained IoT devices and ineffective for large-volume image data, leading to inefficiencies in privacy-preserving distributed learning applications. To address these concerns, this paper proposes a novel Feature-Aware Chaotic Image Encryption scheme that integrates Feature-Aware Pixel Segmentation (FAPS) with Chaotic Chain Permutation and Confusion mechanisms to enhance security while maintaining efficiency. The proposed scheme consists of three stages: (1) FAPS, which extracts and reorganizes pixels based on high and low edge intensity features for correlation disruption; (2) Chaotic Chain Permutation, which employs a logistic chaotic map with SHA- 256-based dynamically updated keys for block-wise permutation; and (3) Chaotic chain Confusion, which utilises dynamically generated chaotic seed matrices for bitwise XOR operations. Extensive security and performance evaluations demonstrate that the proposed scheme significantly reduces pixel correlation— almost zero, achieves high entropy values close to 8, and resists differential cryptographic attacks. The optimum design of the proposed scheme makes it suitable for real-time deployment in resource-constrained environments

A Chaotic Image Encryption Scheme Using Novel Geometric Block Permutation and Dynamic Substitution

In this digital era, ensuring the security of digital data dur- ing transmission and storage is crucial. Digital data, particularly image data, needs to be protected against unauthorized access. To address this, this paper presents a novel image encryption scheme based on a con- fusion diffusion architecture. The diffusion module introduces a novel geometric block permutation technique, which effectively scrambles the pixels based on geometric shape extraction of pixels. The image is con- verted into four blocks, and pixels are extracted from these blocks us- ing L-shape, U-shape, square-shape, and inverted U-shape patterns for each block, respectively. This robust extraction and permutation effec- tively disrupts the correlation within the image. Furthermore, the confu- sion module utilises bit-XOR and dynamic substitution techniques. For the bit-XOR operation, 2D Henon map has been utilised to generate a chaotic seed matrix, which is bit-XORed with the scrambled image. The resultant image then undergoes the dynamic substitution process to complete confusion phase. A statistical security analysis demonstrates the superior security of the proposed scheme with high uncertainty and unpredictability, achieving an entropy of 7.9974 and a correlation coeffi- cient of 0.0014. These results validate the proposed scheme's effectiveness in securing digital images.

X-Cross: Image Encryption Featuring Novel Dual-Layer Block Permutation and Dynamic Substitution Techniques

In this digital age, ensuring the security of digital data, especially the image data is critically important. Image encryption plays an important role in secur- ing the online transmission/storage of images from unauthorized access. In this regard, this paper presents a novel diffusion-confusion- based image encryption algorithm named as X-CROSS. The diffusion phase involves a dual-layer block permutation. It involves a bit-level permutation termed Inter-Bit Transference (IBT) using a Bit-Extraction key, and pixel permutation with a unique X-cross- permutation algorithm to effectively scramble the pixels within an image. The proposed algorithm utilizes a resilient 2D chaotic map with non-linear dynamical behavior, assisting in generating complex Extraction Keys. After the permutation phase, the confusion phase proceeds with a dynamic substitution technique on the permuted images, establishing the final encryption layer. This combination of novel permutation and confusion results in the removal of the image's inherent patterns and increases its resistance to cyber-attacks. The close to ideal statis- tical security results for information entropy, correlation, homogeneity, contrast, and energy validate the proposed scheme's effectiveness in hiding the information within the image

Image Encryption Using DNA Encoding, Snake Permutation and Chaotic Substitution Techniques

Securing image data in IoT networks and other insecure information channels is a matter of critical concern. This paper presents a new image encryption scheme using DNA encoding, snake permutation and chaotic substitution techniques that ensures robust security of the image data with reduced computational overhead. The DNA encoding and snake permutation modules ensure effective scrambling of the pixels and result in efficient diffusion in the plaintext image. For the confusion part, the chaotic substitution technique is implemented, which substitutes the pixel values chosen randomly from 3 S-boxes. Extensive security analysis validate the efficacy of the image encryption algorithm proposed in this paper and results demonstrate that the encrypted images have an ideal information entropy of 7.9895 and an almost zero correlation coefficient of -0.001660. These results indicate a high degree of randomness and no correlation in the encrypted image.

Secure Image Encryption Using Dynamic Block Segmentation and Adaptive Pixel Modification with Chaotic Masking

The widespread use of digital technologies has resulted in an increased generation, transmission and storage of digital images, which need to be secured effectively and efficiently. This paper proposes and evaluates a novel image encryption algorithm that comprises two secure components as its diffusion and confusion modules, i.e., a dynamic block segmentation and permutation module for diffusion and an adaptive pixel modification technique with chaotic masking for confusion. The dynamic block segmentation and permutation module divides the plain image in variable block sizes and then permutes the blocks randomly based on a chaotic permutation key. The adaptive pixel modification with chaotic masking module, on the other hand, obscures the pixel values of the permuted image in a cascaded manner, which ensures that the modification of one pixel affects all pixels within a block. Extensive security analysis validates the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm by exhibiting an entropy of 7.998 and a correlation value of 0.0004. These results indicate that proposed algorithm produces a cipher image with near-perfect entropy and almost zero correlation, making it highly resistant to cyberattacks.

A novel medical image data protection scheme for smart healthcare system

The Internet of Multimedia Things (IoMT) refers to a network of interconnected multimedia devices that communicate with each other over the Internet. Recently, smart healthcare has emerged as a significant application of the IoMT, particularly in the context of knowledge-based learning systems. Smart healthcare systems leverage knowledge-based learning to become more context-aware, adaptable, and auditable while maintaining the ability to learn from historical data. In smart healthcare systems, devices capture images, such as X-rays, Magnetic Resonance Imaging. The security and integrity of these images are crucial for the databases used in knowledge-based learning systems to foster structured decision-making and enhance the learning abilities of AI. Moreover, in knowledge-driven systems, the storage and transmission of HD medical images exert a burden on the limited bandwidth of the communication channel, leading to data transmission delays. To address the security and latency concerns, this paper presents a lightweight medical image encryption scheme utilising bit-plane decomposition and chaos theory. The results of the experiment yield entropy, energy, and correlation values of 7.999, 0.0156, and 0.0001, respectively. This validates the effectiveness of the encryption system proposed in this paper, which offers high-quality encryption, a large key space, key sensitivity, and resistance to statistical attacks.

VisCrypt: Image Encryption Featuring Novel Chaotic Key Generation and Block Permutation Techniques with Visual Cryptography

In this digital era, ensuring the security of data transmission is critically important. Digital data, especially image data, needs to be secured against unauthorized access. In this regards, this paper presents a robust image encryption scheme named as VisCrypt. VisCrypt introduces a novel key generation and block permutation technique with visual cryptography to effectively encrypt the input images. The proposed scheme utilizes a diffusion-confusion image encryption architecture. The diffusion phase consists of novel key generation and block permutation techniques. The proposed key generation module utilizes hyper-chaotic maps with nonlinear dynamical behavior to generate random sequences that undergo spiral permutations to generate complex and unpredictable keys. Moreover, in the novel block permutation technique the image is decomposed into four equalsize blocks where each block is permuted using the generated permutation keys. Furthermore, in the confusion phase, a modified dynamic substitution process is applied on the permuted images and after substitution, the final encrypted images in visually concealed to add extra layer of security. Extensive security analysis validates the effectiveness of proposed scheme by exhibiting ideal results for information entropy, correlation, homogeneity, contrast, and energy.

Image Encryption Using A Novel Orbital-Extraction Permutation Technique and Chaotic Key Generation

This paper presents an image encryption scheme that introduces a novel permutation technique named as orbital-extraction permutation. The proposed encryption scheme contains three important modules, i.e., the key generation module, the orbital-extraction permutation module, and dynamic chaotic substitution module. The key generation module utilizes the 2D Hénon map, a highly non-linear and unpredictable chaotic map, to generate cryptographic keys. The orbital-extraction permutation module reshuffles the pixels of the plain text image in a complex manner disrupting the inherent correlation within the neighboring pixels of the input image. The proposed permutation technique serves as a strong diffusion stage. Furthermore, for the confusion part of the encryption scheme, bit-XOR operations and chaotic substitution methods have been employed. The proposed scheme has been evaluated for key statistical security parameters. Results indicate the enhanced security and robustness of the proposed scheme with an information entropy of 7.9974 and a correlation coefficient of 0.007.

Chaotic Quantum Encryption to Secure Image Data in Post Quantum Consumer Technology

  • Publication Date: 17 June 2024
  • URL: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/10559451/
  • Authors: Muhammad Shahbaz Khan;Jawad Ahmad;Ahmed Al-Dubai;Nikolaos Pitropakis;Baraq Ghaleb;Amjad Ullah;Muhammad Attique Khan;William J. Buchanan
  • Venue: IEEE Transactions on Consumer Electronics, 2024, Vol 70, Issue 4

The rapid advancement in consumer technology has led to an exponential increase in the connected devices, resulting in an enormous and continuous flow of data, particularly the image data. This data needs to be processed, managed, and secured efficiently, especially in the quantum-enabled consumer technology era. This paper, in this regards, presents a quantum image encryption scheme featuring a novel two-phase chaotic confusion-diffusion architecture. The proposed architecture consists of four distinct confusion-diffusion modules that perform a simultaneous qubit and pixel-level encryption on both the position and intensity of quantum encoded pixels. Moreover, quantum circuits for ′ qubit-level chaotic transformation ′ and ′ chaos-based selective perfect shuffle operation ′ have been implemented, which collectively enhance the encryption strength of the proposed scheme. Extensive evaluation has been performed based on various statistical security parameters, such as entropy and correlation. When subjected to differential attacks, the proposed scheme proved its resilience exhibiting ideal results of average 99.6% NPCR (Number of Pixels Change Rate) and 33.5% UACI (Unified Average Changing Intensity). Besides, the proposed scheme also demonstrated resilience against occlusion attacks. Tests involving 50% data occlusion from encrypted images validated the proposed scheme’s capability to successfully decrypt the tampered images, recovering maximum information.

Image Encryption in Frequency Domain Using Hybrid Chaotic Maps, Hashing, and Lifting Wavelet Transform

  • Authors: Fizza Batool, Nadeem Kureshi, Rashiq Rafiq Marie, Fawad Ahmad, Muhammad Shahbaz Khan, Mouad Lemoudden, William J Buchanan, Jawad Ahmad
  • Publication date: 2024/6/12
  • Book: International Conference on Intelligent Systems and Pattern Recognition
  • Pages: 262-273
  • Publisher: Springer Nature Switzerland
  • URL: https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-031-82153-0_20

In the era of rapid digitization and extensive data exchange, security of transmitted data has become a significant concern. To overcome this issue, this paper proposes an image encryption scheme comprising of the integration of multiple chaotic maps including Logistic Sine-Cosine Map, Logistic Sine-Tent Cosine Map and Tent-Sine Map to increase the chaotic range of inducing noise, Lifting Wavelet Transform to extract LL band from it since the encoding is carried out on LL band, permutation to rearrange pixel values of plain-text image, and dynamic substitution technique by using three S-boxes to replace the pixel values, and SHA-512 to generate hash functions. These components result in the extreme confusion and diffusion into the plain-text image for securing transmission of multimedia data. The proposed encryption algorithm has been verified by computing different security parameters, which ensure high quality of image encryption by ideal results.

RNA-TransCrypt: Image Encryption Using Chaotic RNA Encoding, Novel Transformative Substitution, and Tailored Cryptographic Operations

  • Date: 9 Jan 2024
  • Authors: Muhammad Shahbaz Khan, Jawad Ahmad, Ahmed Al-Dubai, Baraq Ghaleb, Nikolaos Pitropakis, and William J. Buchanan
  • URL: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2401.04707

Given the security concerns of Internet of Things (IoT) networks and limited computational resources of IoT devices, this paper presents RNA-TransCrypt, a novel image encryption scheme that is not only highly secure but also efficient and lightweight. RNA-TransCrypt integrates the biocryptographic properties of RNA encoding with the non-linearity and unpredictability of chaos theory. This scheme introduces three novel contributions: 1) the two-base RNA encoding method, which transforms the image into RNA strands-like sequence, ensuring efficient scrambling; 2) the transformative substitution technique, which transforms the s-box values before replacing the pixel values, and is responsible for making the scheme lightweight; and 3) three mathematical cryptographic operations designed especially for image encryption that ensure the effective transformation of the s-box values, resulting in a new outcome even for the same input values. These modules are key-dependent, utilizing chaotic keys generated by the De Jong Fractal Map and the Van der Pol Oscillator. Extensive security analysis, including histogram analysis, correlation analysis, and the results of the statistical security parameters obtained from the Gray-Level Co-occurrence Matrix (GLCM) validate the efficacy of the proposed scheme in encrypting input images with close-to-ideal results of 7.997 entropy and 0.0006 correlation

Fraud?: https://www.techscience.com/cmc/v77n1/54500/pdf ?"A Novel Approach for Image Encryption with Chaos-RNA"

A Novel Cosine-Modulated-Polynomial Chaotic Map to Strengthen Image Encryption Algorithms in IoT Environments

With the widespread use of the Internet of Things (IoT), securing the storage and transmission of multimedia content across IoT devices is a critical concern. Chaos-based Pseudo-Random Number Generators (PRNGs) play an essential role in enhancing the security of image encryption algorithms. This paper introduces a novel 1-dimensional cosine-modulated-polynomial chaotic map to be used as a PRNG in image encryption algorithms. The proposed map utilizes a cosine function to modulate the outcome of a polynomial expression, resulting in complex chaotic behaviour. The designed map acts as a self-modulating system and offers a larger chaotic range, reduced structural complexity, and enhanced chaotic properties, such as aperiodicity, unpredictability, ergodicity, and sensitivity to control parameters and initial conditions, in comparison to the traditional 1-dimensional chaotic maps. An extensive evaluation is performed to gauge the chaotic behaviour of the proposed map, including bifurcation diagrams, chaotic trajectory analysis, fixed point and stability analysis, Lyapunov Exponent, Kolmogorov Entropy and NIST SP800-22 tests demonstrating its effectiveness to be used as a secure PRNG in image encryption algorithms

PermutEx: Feature-Extraction-Based Permutation — A New Diffusion Scheme for Image Encryption Algorithms

Traditional permutation schemes mostly focus on random scrambling of pixels, often neglecting the intrinsic image information that could enhance diffusion in image encryption algorithms. This paper introduces PermutEx, a feature-extractionbased permutation method that utilizes inherent image features to scramble pixels effectively. Unlike random permutation schemes, PermutEx extracts the spatial frequency and local contrast features of the image and ranks each pixel based on this information, identifying which pixels are more important or information-rich based on texture and edge information. In addition, a unique permutation key is generated using the Logistic-Sine Map based on chaotic behavior. The ranked pixels are permuted in conjunction with this unique key, effectively permuting the original image into a scrambled version. Experimental results indicate that the proposed method effectively disrupts the correlation in information-rich areas within the image resulting in a correlation value of 0.000062. The effective scrambling of pixels, resulting in nearly zero correlation, makes this method suitable to be used as diffusion in image encryption algorithms.

Noise-Crypt: Image Encryption with Non-linear Noise, Hybrid Chaotic Maps, and Hashing

To secure the digital images over insecure transmission channels, a new image encryption algorithm Noise-Crypt is proposed in this paper. Noise-Crypt integrates nonlinear random noise, hybrid chaotic maps, and SHA-256 hashing algorithm. The utilized hybrid chaotic maps are the logistic-tent and the logistic-sine-cosine map. The hybrid chaotic maps enhance the pseudorandom sequence generation and selection of substitution boxes, while the logistic-sine-cosine map induces non-linearity in the algorithm through random noise. This deliberate inclusion of noise contributes to increased resistance against cryptanalysis. The proposed scheme has been evaluated for several security parameters, such as differential attacks, entropy, correlation, etc. Extensive evaluation demonstrates the efficacy of the proposed scheme, with almost ideal values of entropy of 7.99 and correlation of −0.0040. Results of the security analysis validate the potency of the proposed scheme in achieving robust image encryption.

SRSS: A New Chaos-Based Single-Round Single S-Box Image Encryption Scheme for Highly Auto-Correlated Data

With the advent of digital communication, securing digital images during transmission and storage has become a critical concern. The traditional s-box substitution methods often fail to effectively conceal the information within highly auto-correlated regions of an image. This paper addresses the security issues presented by three prevalent S-box substitution methods, i.e., single S-box, multiple S-boxes, and multiple rounds with multiple S-boxes, especially when handling images with highly auto-correlated pixels. To resolve the addressed security issues, this paper proposes a new scheme SRSS-the Single Round Single S-Box encryption scheme. SRSS uses a single S-box for substitution in just one round to break the pixel correlations and encrypt the plaintext image effectively. Additionally, this paper introduces a new Chaos-based Random Operation Selection System-CROSS, which nullifies the requirement for multiple S-boxes, thus reducing the encryption scheme's complexity. By randomly selecting the operation to be performed on each pixel, driven by a chaotic sequence, the proposed scheme effectively scrambles even high auto-correlation areas. When compared to the substitution methods mentioned above, the proposed encryption scheme exhibited exceptionally well in just a single round with a single S-box. The close-to-ideal statistical security analysis results, i.e., an entropy of 7.89 and a correlation coefficient of 0.007, validate the effectiveness of the proposed scheme. This research offers an innovative path forward for securing images in applications requiring low computational complexity and fast encryption and decryption speeds.

CellSecure: Securing Image Data in Industrial Internet-of-Things via Cellular Automata and Chaos-Based Encryption

In the era of Industrial IoT (IIoT) and Industry 4.0, ensuring secure data transmission has become a critical concern. Among other data types, images are widely transmitted and utilized across various IIoT applications, ranging from sensor-generated visual data and real-time remote monitoring to quality control in production lines. The encryption of these images is essential for maintaining operational integrity, data confidentiality, and seamless integration with analytics platforms. This paper addresses these critical concerns by proposing a robust image encryption algorithm tailored for IIoT and Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS). The algorithm combines Rule-30 cellular automata with chaotic scrambling and substitution. The Rule 30 cellular automata serves as an efficient mechanism for generating pseudo-random sequences that enable fast encryption and decryption cycles suitable for real- time sensor data in industrial settings. Most importantly, it induces non-linearity in the encryption algorithm. Furthermore, to increase the chaotic range and keyspace of the algorithm, which is vital for security in distributed industrial networks, a hybrid chaotic map, i.e., logistic-sine map is utilized. Extensive security analysis has been carried out to validate the efficacy of the proposed algorithm. Results indicate that our algorithm achieves close-to-ideal values, with an entropy of 7.99 and a correlation of 0.002. This enhances the algorithm's resilience against potential cyber-attacks in the industrial domain.

A DNA Based Colour Image Encryption Scheme Using A Convolutional Autoencoder

With the advancement in technology, digital images can easily be transmitted and stored over the Internet. Encryption is used to avoid illegal interception of digital images. Encrypting large-sized colour images in their original dimension generally results in low encryption/decryption speed along with exerting a burden on the limited bandwidth of the transmission channel. To address the aforementioned issues, a new encryption scheme for colour images employing convolutional autoencoder, DNA and chaos is presented in this paper. The proposed scheme has two main modules, the dimensionality conversion module using the proposed convolutional autoencoder, and the encryption/decryption module using DNA and chaos. The dimension of the input colour image is first reduced from 𝑁 × 𝑀 × 3 to 𝑃 × 𝑄 gray-scale image using the encoder. Encryption and decryption are then performed in the reduced dimension space. The decrypted gray-scale image is upsampled to obtain the original colour image having dimension 𝑁 × 𝑀 × 3. The training and validation accuracy of the proposed autoencoder is 97% and 95%, respectively. Once the autoencoder is trained, it can be used to reduce and subsequently increase the dimension of any arbitrary input colour image. The efficacy of the designed autoencoder has been demonstrated by the successful reconstruction of the compressed image into the original colour image with negligible perceptual distortion. The second major contribution presented in this paper is an image encryption scheme using DNA along with multiple chaotic sequences and substitution boxes. The security of the proposed image encryption algorithm has been gauged using several evaluation parameters, such as histogram of the cipher image, entropy, NPCR, UACI, key sensitivity, contrast, etc. The experimental results of the proposed scheme demonstrate its effectiveness to perform colour image encryption

A new S-Box design system for data encryption using artificial bee colony algorithm

Securing digital image data is a key concern in today’s information-driven society. Effective encryption techniques are required to protect sensitive image data, with the Substitution-box (S-box) often playing a pivotal role in many symmetric encryption systems. This study introduces an innovative approach to creating S-boxes for encryption algorithms. The proposed S-boxes are tested for validity and non-linearity by incorporating them into an image encryption scheme. The nonlinearity measure of the proposed S-boxes is 112. These qualities significantly enhance its resistance to common cryptographic attacks, ensuring high image data security. Furthermore, to assess the robustness of the S-boxes, an encryption system has also been proposed and the proposed S-boxes have been integrated into the designed encryption system. To validate the effectiveness of the proposed encryption system, a comprehensive security analysis including brute force attack and histogram analysis has been performed. In addition, to determine the level of security during the transmission and storage of digital content, the encryption system’s Number of Pixel Change Rate (NPCR), and Unified Averaged Changed Intensity (UACI) are calculated. The results indicate a 99.71% NPCR and 33.51% UACI. These results demonstrate that the proposed S-boxes offer a significant level of security for digital content throughout its transmission and storage.

A Novel Chaos-based Light-weight Image Encryption Scheme

Multimodal hearing aids (HAs) aim to deliver more intelligible audio in noisy environments by contextually sensing and processing data in the form of not only audio but also visual information (e.g. lip reading). Machine learning techniques can play a pivotal role for the contextually processing of multimodal data. However, since the computational power of HA devices is low, therefore this data must be processed either on the edge or cloud which, in turn, poses privacy concerns for sensitive user data. Existing literature proposes several techniques for data encryption but their computational complexity is a major bottleneck to meet strict latency requirements for development of future multi-modal hearing aids. To overcome this problem, this paper proposes a novel real-time audio/visual data encryption scheme based on chaos-based encryption using the Tangent-Delay Ellipse Reflecting Cavity-Map System (TD-ERCS) map and Non-linear Chaotic (NCA) Algorithm. The results achieved against different security parameters, including Correlation Coefficient, Unified Averaged Changed Intensity (UACI), Key Sensitivity Analysis, Number of Changing Pixel Rate (NPCR), Mean-Square Error (MSE), Peak Signal to Noise Ratio (PSNR), Entropy test, and Chi-test, indicate that the newly proposed scheme is more lightweight due to its lower execution time as compared to existing schemes and more secure due to increased key-space against modern brute-force attacks.

A Novel Multi-Chaos Based Compressive Sensing Encryption Technique

  • URL: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9194220
  • Authors: Jawad Ahmad; Ahsen Tahir; Jan Sher Khan; Atif Jameel; Qammer H Abbasi; William Buchanan
  • Venue: 2019 International Conference on Advances in the Emerging Computing Technologies (AECT)
  • Date of Conference: 10-10 February 2020

Compressive sensing is a compression technique that can be effectively utilised in multimedia encryption. This paper proposes a new compressive sensing image encryption scheme using the Secure Hash Algorithm (SHA-512), Discrete Cosine Transform (DCT), orthogonal matrix and discrete Chirikov map-based random permutation. DCT is applied on a plaintext image and a block of DCT coefficients is multiplied with an orthogonal matrix. Inverse DCT and scaling are performed to restrict the values between 0 and 255. Furthermore, values are shuffled using Chirikov-based pseudo-random permutation. A strong trade-off exists between DCT block size and computational efficiency. The quality and Signal to Noise Ratio (SNR) of the decrypted image decreases when the size of the DCT matrix is reduced, increasing the speed of the encryption algorithm. An extensive security analyses of the proposed scheme are performed, which establishes the robustness, computational efficiency and security of the technique against cryptographic attacks.

DNA and Plaintext Dependent Chaotic Visual Selective Image Encryption

  • URL: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9183918
  • Authors: Jan Sher Khan; Wadii Boulila; Jawad Ahmad; Saeed Rubaiee; Atique Ur Rehman; Roobaea Alroobaea; William J. Buchanan
  • Published in: IEEE Access ( Volume: 8)
  • Date of Publication: 01 September 2020

Visual selective image encryption can both improve the efficiency of the image encryption algorithm and reduce the frequency and severity of attacks against data. In this article, a new form of encryption is proposed based on keys derived from Deoxyribonucleic Acid (DNA) and plaintext image. The proposed scheme results in chaotic visual selective encryption of image data. In order to make and ensure that this new scheme is robust and secure against various kinds of attacks, the initial conditions of the chaotic maps utilized are generated from a random DNA sequence as well as plaintext image via an SHA-512 hash function. To increase the key space, three different single dimension chaotic maps are used. In the proposed scheme, these maps introduce diffusion in a plain image by selecting a block that have greater correlation and then it is bitwise XORed with the random matrix. The other two chaotic maps break the correlation among adjacent pixels via confusion (row and column shuffling). Once the ciphertext image has been divided into the respective units of Most Significant Bits (MSBs) and Least Significant Bit (LSBs), the host image is passed through lifting wavelet transformation, which replaces the low-frequency blocks of the host image (i.e., HL and HH) with the aforementioned MSBs and LSBs of ciphertext. This produces a final visual selective encrypted image and all security measures proves the robustness of the proposed scheme.

Chaos-Based Confusion and Diffusion of Image Pixels Using Dynamic Substitution

  • URL: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9151878
  • Published in: IEEE Access ( Volume: 8)
  • Date of Publication: 29 July 2020
  • Authors: Abdullah Qayyum; Jawad Ahmad; Wadii Boulila; Saeed Rubaiee; Arshad; Fawad Masood; Fawad Khan; William J. Buchanan

The evolution of wireless and mobile communication from 0G to the upcoming 5G gives rise to data sharing through the Internet. This data transfer via open public networks are susceptible to several types of attacks. Encryption is a method that can protect information from hackers and hence confidential data can be secured through a cryptosystem. Due to the increased number of cyber attacks, encryption has become an important component of modern-day communication. In this article, a new image encryption algorithm is presented using chaos theory and dynamic substitution. The proposed scheme is based on two-dimensional Henon, Ikeda chaotic maps, and substitution box (S-box) transformation. Through Henon, a random S-Box is selected and the image pixel is substituted randomly. To analyze security and robustness of the proposed algorithm, several security tests such as information entropy, histogram investigation, correlation analysis, energy, homogeneity, and mean square error are performed. The entropy values of the test images are greater than 7.99 and the key space of the proposed algorithm is 2798. Furthermore, the correlation values of the encrypted images using the proposed scheme are close to zero when compared with other conventional schemes. The number of pixel change rate (NPCR) and unified average change intensity (UACI) for the proposed scheme are higher than 99.50% and 33, respectively. The simulation results and comparison with the state-of-the-art algorithms prove the efficiency and security of the proposed scheme.

Chaos based efficient selective image encryption

Due to social networks, demand for sharing multimedia data is significantly increased in last decade. However, lower complexity and frequent security breaches on public network such as Internet make it easy for eavesdroppers to approach the actual contents with- out any hurdle. Many encryption algorithms has been developed by researchers to increase the security of such traffic and make it difficult for eavesdroppers to access actual data. However, these traditional algorithms increase the communication overhead, computational cost and also do not provide security against new attacks. These issues in recent algorithms motivate the researchers to further explore this area and proposed such algorithms which have lower overhead, more efficiency than the existing techniques and equip with requirements of next generations multimedia networks. To address all these issues and keeping in mind the future of next generation multimedia networks, we proposed a secure and light-weight encryption scheme for digital images. The proposed technique initially divide plaintext image in a num- ber of blocks and correlation coefficients of each block are then calculated. The block with the maximum correlation coefficient values are pixel-wise XORed with the random numbers generated from a skew tent map based on a pre-defined threshold value. At last, the whole image is permuted via two random sequences generated from TD-ERCS chaotic map. Exper- imental results shows higher security via checking correlation, entropy, histogram, diffusion characteristic and key sensitivity of the proposed scheme

Chaos based efficient selective image encryption

Due to social networks, demand for sharing multimedia data is significantly increased in last decade. However, lower complexity and frequent security breaches on public network such as Internet make it easy for eavesdroppers to approach the actual contents with- out any hurdle. Many encryption algorithms has been developed by researchers to increase the security of such traffic and make it difficult for eavesdroppers to access actual data. However, these traditional algorithms increase the communication overhead, computational cost and also do not provide security against new attacks. These issues in recent algorithms motivate the researchers to further explore this area and proposed such algorithms which have lower overhead, more efficiency than the existing techniques and equip with requirements of next generations multimedia networks. To address all these issues and keeping in mind the future of next generation multimedia networks, we proposed a secure and light-weight encryption scheme for digital images. The proposed technique initially divide plaintext image in a num- ber of blocks and correlation coefficients of each block are then calculated. The block with the maximum correlation coefficient values are pixel-wise XORed with the random numbers generated from a skew tent map based on a pre-defined threshold value. At last, the whole image is permuted via two random sequences generated from TD-ERCS chaotic map. Exper- imental results shows higher security via checking correlation, entropy, histogram, diffusion characteristic and key sensitivity of the proposed scheme

A novel chaos-based partial image encryption scheme using Lifting Wavelet Transform

Depending on applications and specific security requirements, digital images can either be fully or partially encrypted. Partial encryption is one of the methods that reduces computational and processing cost. To achieve partial encryption, chaotic maps in combination with different transforms, like the Wavelet Transform (WT), Discrete Cosine Transform (DCT) and Lifting Wavelet Transform (LWT) are often used. Due to higher efficiency and fast processing, LWT is preferred over wavelet transform. In this paper, a novel partial image encryption scheme based on LWT, Secure Hash Algorithm (SHA-512), Logistic-sine chaotic map, TD-ERCS chaotic map and Substitution Box (S-Box) is presented. In comparison to other schemes, the proposed encryption technique is computationally efficient, secure and sensitive to initial key conditions.

Visual meaningful encryption scheme using intertwinning logistic map

Transmission of images over the Internet is exponentially increased in the last decade. However, Internet is considered as an inse- cure channel and hence may cause serious privacy issues. To overcome such privacy concerns, researchers are trying to secure image data from eavesdroppers through a method known as encryption. The final output of most traditional image encryption scheme is a random like noise. How- ever, attackers pay special attention to such random/noise like images and hence these images are vulnerable to different type of attacks. In this paper, we propose a novel encryption scheme that can transform the plain-text image pixels into a visually meaningful encrypted image. In the proposed scheme, intertwining logistic map is used for introduc- ing confusion and diffusion in plain-text images. Firstly, plain-text image pixels are permuted via random values obtained from chaotic map. In order to strengthen the proposed scheme, random values obtained from chaotic map are also XORed with the permuted image. In the final stage, Gray Substitution Box (S-Box) is applied to achieve the final cipher-text image. All experimental results such as key space analysis, noise attack and data loss attack are in the favor of the proposed scheme.

A novel image encryption scheme based on orthogonal matrix, skew tent map, and XOR operation

Content protection is considered as an important issue in today’s world. Therefore, encryption of such con- tents is a challenging task for researchers. They are focus- ing on protection of valuable data such as image, video, and audio against different attacks from eavesdroppers. In this paper, we proposed an enhanced version of Fawad et al.’s scheme to fulfill essential needs of a secure image encryption algorithm. The proposed cryptosystem is resis- tant against many attacks like brute force, differential and statistical. To quantify the quality of the proposed scheme, instead of visual inspection, the proposed scheme is ana- lyzed through various tests, such as correlation coefficient, information entropy, Number of Pixel Change Rate (NPCR) and Unified Average Change Intensity (UACI). Simula- tion results of the presented scheme shows good diffusion characteristics when compared to other traditional schemes.

DNA sequence based medical image encryption scheme

Medical consultants and doctors store and update patients confidential information on Internet cloud computing platforms. These days, securing medical images from eavesdroppers is one of the most challenging and significant research areas. Due to various attacks from eavesdroppers, medical images need to be store and send in the encrypted format. In order to secure medical image data from unauthorised access, a DNA (Deoxyri-bonucleic acid) sequence based medical image encryption scheme is proposed. First of all, for a given value of DNA sequence, a hash value via SHA-512 is computed. This hash value is given as a secret key to the Intertwining Logistic map. Through chaotic sequences, the correlation among pixels is reduced using shuffling process. The shuffled image is XORed with the chaotic random values for the diffusion. Finally, the affine transformation is applied to the diffused image …

Secure occupancy monitoring system for iot using lightweight intertwining logistic map

Vision-based occupancy counters have a wide range of applications in resource management, queue management, and handling emergency situations. In real time scenarios, occupancy counters are connected to the Internet. However, the Internet is an insecure channel and always prone to various types of attacks. When wired or Wireless Multimedia Surveillance Networks (WMSNs) are connected to the Internet, the privacy of innocent people can also be compromised. This paper presents a secure real-time scheme for IoT systems by intelligent integration of occupancy monitoring and chaos-based lightweight image encryption. Firstly, the real-time video was used to extract video frames through the single overhead camera. When people are detected in a frame, the intelligent system encrypts the current frame and also counts the people in/out and send occupancy count information to the cloud computing platform (ThingSpeak). Several experiments and security analyses were conducted to prove the security of partially encrypted video frames. Entropy, correlation coefficient, keyspace, number of pixel change rate, unified average change intensity, and histogram analysis prove the security of the proposed video encryption scheme. Further- more, the proposed chaos-based encryption has faster processing time and hence the scheme can provide sufficient security in low power IoT devices

Real-time lightweight chaotic encryption for 5g iot enabled lip-reading driven secure hearing-aid

Hearing-loss is the third most common chronic health condition. More than 10 million people in the United Kingdom (UK) and approximately 360 million in the world are suffering from a debilitating hearing loss, with the number estimated to rise to 14.5m by 2031. Existing audio-only hearing-aids are known to perform poorly in noisy situations where overwhelming noise is present. Next-generation audio-visual (lip-reading driven) hearing-aids stand as a major enabler to realise more intelligible audio. However, high data rate, low latency, low computational complexity, and privacy are some of the major bottlenecks to the successful deployment of such advanced hearing-aids. To address these challenges, we envision an integration of 5G Cloud-Radio Access Network (C-RAN), Internet of Things (IoT), and strong privacy algorithms to fully benefit from the possibilities these technologies have to offer. The envisioned 5G IoT enabled secure audio-visual (AV) hearing-aid transmits the encrypted compressed AV information and receives encrypted enhanced reconstructed speech in real-time which fully addresses cybersecurity attacks such as location privacy and eavesdropping. For security implementation, a real-time lightweight AV encryption is utilized. For speech enhancement, the received AV information in the cloud is used to filter noisy audio using both deep learning and analytical acoustic modelling (filtering based approach). To offload the computational complexity and real-time optimization issues, the framework runs deep learning and big data optimization processes in the background on the cloud. Specifically, in this work, three key contributions are reported: (1) 5G IoT enabled secure audio-visual hearing-aid framework that aims to achieve a round-trip latency up to 5ms with 100 Mbps datarate (2) Real-time lightweight audio-visual encryption based on piece-wise linear chaotic map (PWLCM), chebyshev map, secure hash, and a novel substitution box (S-Box) algorithms (3) Lip-reading driven deep learning approach for speech enhancement in the cloud. The effectiveness and security of the proposed secure AV hearing-aid is extensively evaluated using widely known security metrics such as correlation coefficient, entropy, contrast, energy, number of pixel change rate (NPCR) and unified average change intensity (UACI). Lip-reading driven deep learning approach for speech enhancement is evaluated under four different dynamic real-world commercially-motivated scenarios (cafe, street junction, public transport, and pedestrian area) using benchmark Grid and ChiME3 corpora. The critical analysis in terms of both speech enhancement and AV encryption demonstrate the potential of the envisioned technology in acquiring high quality speech reconstruction and secure mobile AV hearing aid communication.

Intertwining and nca maps based new image encryption scheme

In this digital era, the Internet is a main source of communication. Due to exponential advancement in Internet technologies, transmission of multimedia data is very common now. However, transmitting sensitive information over the Inter- net is always vulnerable to different kind of attacks. In order to address such issues, cryptographers are proposing encryption techniques. In encryption, data is manipulated in such a way that intruders cannot access the original information. This paper presents a secure image encryption scheme via Intertwining and Nonlinear Chaotic Maps (NCA). Both main steps i.e., confusion and diffusion are implemented using chaotic maps. Numerous security parameters are applied to the proposed improved tech- nique and strength of the scheme is evaluated. All experimental results proved the robustness and higher security of the proposed chaos-based scheme

A novel image encryption based on Lorenz equation, Gingerbreadman chaotic map and S8 permutation

Internet is used as the main source of communication throughout the world. However due to public nature of internet data are always exposed to different types of attacks. To address this issue many researchers are working in this area and proposing data encryption techniques. Recently a new substitution box has been proposed for image encryption using many interesting properties like gingerbread-man chaotic map and S8 permutation. But there are certain weaknesses in aforesaid technique which does not provide sufficient security. To resolve the security issue an enhanced version of existing technique is proposed in this paper. Lorenz chaotic map based confusion and diffusion processes in existing technique are employed. Lorenz map is used to remove strong correlation among the plain text image pixels. In diffusion stage a random matrix is generated through lorenz chaotic map and XORed with shuffled image. It the end, existing gingerbread-man chaotic map based S-box is applied to extract the final cipher text image. The proposed enhanced scheme is analysed by statistical analysis, key space analysis, information entropy analysis and differential analysis. In order to ensure the robustness and higher security of proposed scheme, results via Number of Pixel Rate Change (NPRC)and Unified Average Change Intensity (UACI) tests are also validated.

A compression sensing and noise-tolerant image encryption scheme based on chaotic maps and orthogonal matrices

With the evolution of technologies, the size of an image data has been significantly increased. However, traditional image encryption schemes cannot handle the emerging problems in big data such as noise toleration and compression. In order to meet today’s challenges, we propose a new image encryption scheme based on chaotic maps and orthogonal matrices. The main core of the pro- posed scheme is based on the interesting properties of an orthogonal matrix. To obtain a random orthogonal matrix via the Gram Schmidt algorithm, a well-known nonlinear chaotic map is used in the proposed scheme to diffuse pixels values of a plaintext image. In the process of block- wise random permutation, the logistic map is employed followed by the diffusion process. The experimental results and security analyses such as key space, differential and statistical attacks show that the proposed scheme is secure enough and robust against channel noise and JPEG com- pression. In addition to complete encryption for higher security, it also supports partial encryption for faster pro- cessing as well.

An improved image encryption scheme based on a non-linear chaotic algorithm and substitution boxes

World has become a global village after introduction of social media and social networks. However, it extensively increased the demand for network resources, particularly multimedia traffic like images, videos and audio. The medium for this extensive traffic is always public networks such as internet or cellular networks. But the open nature of such network like internet always creates security threats for data during transmission. Due to many intrinsic features and higher correlation in multimedia traffic, existing encryption algorithms are not very convincing to perform well under critical scenarios. Therefore, many people in the research community are still working to propose new encryption schemes which can address these issues and handle multimedia traffic effectively on public networks. In this paper, we explore the weaknesses of existing encryption schemes, which compromise in many scenarios due to high correlation of multimedia traffic. To tackle this issue we proposed certain enhancements in an existing scheme. Our enhanced modification includes addition of bitwise XORed operation using non-linear chaotic algorithm. Performance of enhanced scheme is tested against state of the art security parameters. Efficiency of the proposed scheme is also validated via entropy, correlation, peak signal to noise ratio, unified average change intensity and number of pixels change rate tests.

A new technique for designing 8×8 substitution box for image encryption applications

To create confusion in ciphertexts, encryption processes depends upon nonlinear mappings. This nonlinear mapping can be achieved by a process known as substitution. In a secure encryption algorithm, substitution plays a key role during confusion stage of encryption algorithms. In this work, we present a novel chaos-based substitution box that can be utilized in the encryption processes for securing digital images from eavesdroppers. The proposed substitution box is also compared with other conventional substitution boxes presented in literature. Various statistical measures such as contrast, correlation, energy and homogeneity analysis prove the superiority of the proposed substitution box.

Secure speech communication algorithm via DCT and TD-ERCS chaotic map

Secure communication has always been a demanding area in civil, commercial and particularly in military set up. Robust and time-tested efficient algorithms are needed to have an essential privacy for speech transmission in the telephone networks, radio communication and in the emerging cellular mobile radio systems. In this paper, we present a highly secure speech encryption algorithm based on amplitude scrambling and Discrete Cosine Transform (DCT) coefficients scrambling. The permutation is performed using TD-ERCS chaotic map. The proposed scheme has been implemented successfully on software framework which yielded zero residual intelligibility and high quality of recovered speech. Simulation results reveal that the anticipated algorithm is secure enough and resistant against various security attacks. The authors are reasonably confident of their contribution which can eventually be exploited as software, hardware-software and an integral part of any embedded secure communication system

An efficient and secure partial image encryption for wireless multimedia sensor networks using discrete wavelet transform, chaotic maps and substitution box

Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN) is widely deployed in monitoring of some physical activity and/or environmental conditions. Data gathered from WSN is transmitted via network to a central location for further processing. Numerous applications of WSN can be found in smart homes, intelligent buildings, health care, energy efficient smart grids and industrial control systems. In recent years, computer scientists has focused towards findings more applications of WSN in multimedia technologies, i.e. audio, video and digital images. Due to bulky nature of multimedia data, WSN process a large volume of multimedia data which significantly increases computational complexity and hence reduces battery time. With respect to battery life constraints, image compression in addition with secure transmission over a wide ranged sensor network is an emerging and challenging task in Wireless Multimedia Sensor Networks. Due to the open nature of the Internet, transmission of data must be secure through a process known as encryption. As a result, there is an intensive demand for such schemes that is energy efficient as well as highly secure since decades. In this paper, discrete wavelet-based partial image encryption scheme using hashing algorithm, chaotic maps and Hussain’s S-Box is reported. The plaintext image is compressed via discrete wavelet transform and then the image is shuffled column-wise and row wise-wise via Piece-wise Linear Chaotic Map (PWLCM) and Nonlinear Chaotic Algorithm, respectively. To get higher security, initial conditions for PWLCM are made dependent on hash function. The permuted image is bitwise XORed with random matrix generated from Intertwining Logistic map. To enhance the security further, final ciphertext is obtained after substituting all elements with Hussain’s substitution box. Experimental and statistical results confirm the strength of the anticipated scheme.

Td-ercs map-based confusion and diffusion of autocorrelated data

In this article, we proposed a new scheme to encrypt highly autocorrelated image pixel data. In existing literature, single substitution was used to break autocorrelation in images. To get better results, instead of single substitution box, some researchers are min- imizing the autocorrelation via utilizing multiple sub- stitution boxes. However, we found that multiple sub- stitution boxes cannot solve the problem of autocorre- lation independently. Therefore, we added chaotic con- fusion and diffusion to the existing substitution scheme in order to remove the correlation completely. Initially, we break the autocorrelation of data by permuting the pixels via TD-ERCS chaotic map. Bitwise XOR is car- ried out for diffusion using logistic map followed by the existing substitution scheme. Experimental analy- sis shows that the proposed scheme has greater resis- tance to brute force attack and statistical attack. Fur- ther analyses such as statistical analysis, peak signal- to-noise ratio, contrast analysis, key space analysis, entropy analysis, correlation analysis, key sensitivity analysis, and encryption quality analysis proved the high robustness of the proposed scheme

A secure image encryption scheme based on chaotic maps and affine transformation

Due to the interesting nonlinear dynamic properties of chaotic maps, recently chaos-based encryption algorithms have gained much attention in cryptographic communi- ties. However, many encryption schemes do not fulfil the minimum key space requirement, which is an essential concern in many secure data applications. In this paper, an efficient chaos-based image encryption scheme with higher key space is presented. Even with a sin- gle round of encryption, a significantly larger key space can be achieved. The proposed scheme removes correlation among image pixels via random chaotic sequences, simply by XOR and addition operations. In order to resist against numerous attacks, we apply the affine transformation to get the final ciphertext image. The security of the proposed scheme is proved through histogram, contrast, PSNR, entropy, correlation, key space, key sensitivity and differential attack analysis. Many significant properties of chaotic maps, sen- sitivity to initial condition and control parameters, structure and attack complexity, make the anticipated scheme very reliable, practical and robust in various secure communication applications

A new image encryption scheme based on dynamic s-boxes and chaotic maps

Substitution box is a unique and nonlinear core component of block ciphers. A better designing technique of substitution box can boost up the quality of ciphertexts. In this paper, a new encryption method based on dynamic substitution boxes is proposed via using two chaotic maps. To break the correlation in an original image, pixels values of the original plaintext image are permuted row- and column-wise through random sequences. The aforementioned random sequences are generated by 2-D Burgers chaotic map. For the generation of dynamic substitution boxes, Logistic chaotic map is employed. In the process of diffusion, the permuted image is divided into blocks and each block is substituted via different dynamic substitution boxes. In contrast to conven- tional encryption schemes, the proposed scheme does not undergo the fixed block cipher and hence the security level can be enhanced. Extensive security analysis including histogram test is applied on the proposed image encryption technique. All experimen- tal results reveal that the proposed scheme has a high level of security and robustness for transmission of digital images on insecure communication channels.

A new chaos-based secure image encryption scheme using multiple substitution boxes

Due to development in Internet and networking technology, multimedia data is broadly transmitted via wired and wireless medium. Thus security is a major concern in modern communication systems. Encryption is one of the pre-eminent ways to guarantee security in many real time applications. In this paper, confusion and diffusion phenomenon is presented for digital images. The proposed scheme provides a secure image encryption/decryption scheme using two chaotic maps and substitution boxes. To confuse the relationship between plaintext and ciphertext images, both chaotic maps play a vital role in the confusion and diffusion process. In confusion process, the plaintext image is permuted row-wise and column-wise via two random sequences generated by Henon map. The pixel values diffusion is carried out by unimodel Skew tent map through XOR operation. Furthermore, in last step of the proposed scheme, image is divided into four blocks. To get a highly diffused ciphertext, four different Substitution Boxes (S-Boxes) are applied on each block. Extensive security analysis show that the proposed scheme provides an efficient security for digital images.

Chaos-based diffusion for highly autocorrelated data in encryption algorithms

In a single substitution box, the same regions (pixels) of an image are encrypted to one unique symbol. To reduce this type of autocorrelation in data, chaos has been extensively applied over the last decade. By using chaotic maps, a single substitution box has been replaced with multiple substitution boxes for the encryption of autocorrelated data. The technique of multiple substitution boxes is becoming very popu- lar among cryptographic algorithm designers to over- come the drawbacks of a single substitution box. In this paper, however, we found that replacing a single substitution box with multiple substitution boxes can- not provide a general solution for highly autocorre- lated data. To address this issue, we propose a novel technique by adding chaotic diffusion to the existing substitution process. Extensive security analyses show that the proposed algorithm achieves both higher-level security and fast encryption time when compared with existing algorithms.

An experimental comparison of chaotic and non-chaotic image encryption schemes

During last few years, transmission of digital multimedia data (images, audios and videos) over Internet, wireless cell phones, television broadcasting etc., has been significantly evolved. The provision of security to store and transmit data with confidentiality, integrity, and authentication for multimedia data over wireless medium is attaining importance these days. Over a few decades, a number of image encryption schemes have been implemented, each with various features, pros and cons. So there is a need to carry out security analysis of these schemes through some standard parameters. In this paper, an effort is being made for comparison of traditional encryption algorithms via some security parameters rather than using just visual inspection. Through these security parameters, one can determine a better and highly secure image encryption scheme. Comparative analysis of Advanced Encryption Standard, Compression Friendly Encryption Scheme, Chaotically Coupled Chaotic Map Encryption Scheme and a Bernoulli Map Based Encryption Scheme are done. Results are finally compiled to conclude the optimum scheme to be used feasibly with high security level.

An efficient image encryption scheme based on: Henon map, skew tent map and S-Box

Due to easy and simple implementation, normally single 1-D chaotic maps like logistic and sine maps are employed in multimedia data encryption. However, data encrypted through a single chaotic map does not provide better security in terms of resistance against various attacks. In this paper, 2D Henon chaotic map and skew tent map are deployed in the design of an efficient chaos-based image encryption algorithm. To confuse the relationship between plaintext and ciphertext images, both chaotic maps play a key role in the permutation and diffusion mechanism. In the confusion stage, firstly, the Henon chaotic map generates two different chaotic sequences, which are further applied in row and column permutation of plaintext image. The pixel values diffusion is produced by unimodal skew tent map via XOR operations. In the last stage of encryption algorithm, Hussain’s substitution box is used to substitute each pixel into a new random pixel. Extensive security analysis and resistance to statistical attack prove the security of anticipated scheme

Comparative analysis of chaotic and non-chaotic image encryption schemes

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