Image encryption using DNA complementary rule and chaotic maps

This paper proposes a novel confusion and diffusion method for image encryption. One innovation is to confuse the pixels by transforming the nucleotide into its base pair for random times, the other is to generate the new keys according to the plain image and the common keys, which can make the initial conditions of the chaotic maps change automatically in every encryption process. For any size of the original grayscale image, after being permuted the rows and columns respectively by the arrays generated by piecewise linear chaotic map (PWLCM), each pixel of the original image is encoded into four nucleotides by the deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) coding, then each nucleotide is transformed into its base pair for random time(s) using the complementary rule, the times is generated by Chebyshev maps. Experiment results and security analysis show that the scheme can not only achieve good encryption result, but also the key space is large enough to resist against common attacks.

Graphical abstractThe Chebyshev maps and 6 group legal complementary rules are used to encrypt the image. The keys are generated by the MD5 hash of the plain image.Figure optionsDownload full-size imageDownload as PowerPoint slideHighlights► Confuse the pixels by transforming the nucleotide into its base pair for random times. ► Generate the new keys according to the plain image and the common keys to make the initial conditions change automatically. ► Each pixel is encoded into four nucleotides by the DNA coding using the complementary rule.