A New Efficient Crypto-Watermarking Method for Medical Images Security Based on Encrypted EPR Embedding in Its DICOM Imaging

Abstract

Digitalization of media has exploded in recent years. It has resulted in the rise of private data hacking, which has been increased by the growth of the data exchange system, i.e., the Internet, as well as the simple access to storage media. New approaches, such as watermarking in (C. Iwendi et al., 2020; D. Datta et al, 2021; Randhir Kumar et al,2021), are being used to combat these hackers. The application of image watermarking technologies to medical images, as proposed in (Nazari, M., et al, 2021; Thanki, R, 2021; Manoj K., 2020), is the focus of this research. In this chapter, we propose a new robust blind crypto-watermarking solution for medical imaging or DICOM file (Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine) security based on masking (or hide) electronic patient information (patient name, patient ID, patient age...) in its medical imaging, then, erases them from the tag of the DICOM. Before being included into medical imaging, DICOM patient information, or EPR, is encrypted using a modified AES (Advanced Encryption Standard) encryption technique. The image is broken into 8x8 pixel chunks. In each block, we use the 2D-LWT (Lifting wavelet transform), 2D-DCT (discrete cosine transforms), and SVD (singular value decomposition) to insert one bit of the encrypted watermark into the hybrid transform domain. Various attacks, such as noise, filtering, scaling, and compression, are used to test the method. According to the obtained results the watermark (EPR) is imperceptible in the imaging, and the suggested technique has passed the attacks test with success.