Image Encryption Algorithm Based on DNA Encoding and Chaotic Maps

Abstract

We propose a new image encryption algorithm based on DNA sequences combined with chaotic maps. This algorithm has two innovations: (1) it diffuses the pixels by transforming the nucleotides into corresponding base pairs a random number of times and (2) it confuses the pixels by a chaotic index based on a chaotic map. For any size of the original grayscale image, the rows and columns are fist exchanged by the arrays generated by a logistic chaotic map. Secondly, each pixel that has been confused is encoded into four nucleotides according to the DNA coding. Thirdly, each nucleotide is transformed into the corresponding base pair a random number of time(s) by a series of iterative computations based on Chebyshev’s chaotic map. Experimental results indicate that the key account of this algorithm is 1.536 × 10127, the correlation coefficient of a 256 × 256 Lena image between, before, and after the encryption processes was 0.0028, and the information entropy of the encrypted image was 7.9854. These simulation results and security analysis show that the proposed algorithm not only has good encryption effect, but also has the ability to repel exhaustive, statistical, differential, and noise attacks.