
A novel chaotic based image encryption using a hybrid model
of deoxyribonucleic acid and cellular automata
Rasul Enayatifar
a
, Hossein Javedani Sadaei
a
, Abdul Hanan Abdullah
b
, Malrey Lee
c,
n
,
Ismail Fauzi Isnin
b
a
Graduate Program in Electrical Engineering, Federal University of Minas Gerais, MG, Brazil
b
Faculty of Computing, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, Johor, Malaysia
c
The Research Center for Advanced Image and Information Technology, School of Electronics & Information Engineering, ChonBuk National University,
ChonBuk, JeonJu 561-756, Republic of Korea
article info
Article history:
Received 24 December 2014
Received in revised form
3 March 2015
Accepted 9 March 2015
Available online 30 March 2015
Keywords:
Image encryption
Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA)
Cellular automata (CA)
Chaotic map
Tinkerbell map
abstract
Currently, there are many studies have conducted on developing security of the digital image in order to
protect such data while they are sending on the internet. This work aims to propose a new approach
based on a hybrid model of the Tinkerbell chaotic map, deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) and cellular
automata (CA). DNA rules, DNA sequence XOR operator and CA rules are used simultaneously to encrypt
the plain-image pixels. To determine rule number in DNA sequence and also CA, a 2-dimension
Tinkerbell chaotic map is employed. Experimental results and computer simulations, both confirm that
the proposed scheme not only demonstrates outstanding encryption, but also resists various typical
attacks.
& 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction
Now ada ys, to send information such as digital images and videos
through the internet and other kind of innovation technologies have
become a significant task and prot ecting content of these data is
quiteaseriousproblem,aswell[1,2]. In recent years, to protect the
security of these types of information, numerous image encryption
methods hav e been developed [1–15]. Although preliminary encryp-
tion methods such as IDEA, AES, RSA and DES focused on the high
correlation among adjacent pixels in digital image, these methods
are not efficient enough for suitable encryption [16,17].Tohave
almost a comprehensive algorithm, different categories of image
encryption are introduced by scientists.
The first group is an optical image encryption approach, which
is inspired by domain transform techniques such as discrete
fractional Fourier transform (DFrFT) [18,19], fractional Fourier
transform (FrFT) [7,15], gyrator transform [10,20] and Arnold
transform [21,22].
Second group focuses on chaos-base image encryption, which
satisfies confusion and diffusion strategy [13,14,23,24].Thisgroupis
well-known due to the specific features of a chaotic map which
causes many attentions among scientists. This type of image
encryption normally contains permutation and diffusion step
[17,25]. All pixel position is reallocated by using chaotic map in
the permutation step while gray-level of pixels not changed. Unlike
the permutation, in diffusion step all pixels gray-level will be
changed with the help of chaotic map.
One of the latest encryption methods is based on optimization
algorithm [1,2,13]. In almost all of these kinds of methods two
sequential steps are performed. At first, chaotic map is employed
to specify numbers of cipher images which are extracted from the
plain image. In the second step, optimization algorithm exhibits an
evolutionary trend to improve the quality of cipher images and
finally demonstrate the best cipher image as the output of the
encryption algorithm.
Another popular image encryption method is based on deox-
yribonucleic acid (DNA) which has excellent inherent feature that
cause DNA appears to be suitable for high-security encryption
[1,26–29]. The DNA-based approach includes two phases where
the first phase applied DNA theory to encode plain image pixels to
a DNA sequence and those rules are also used to generate the key
image. In the next phase, DNA operation rules affect encoded
plain-image pixels and finally generate cipher-image.
The last main category that we would to explain is using cellular
automata (CA) for secure image encryption [8,30–33].TheCA
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
journal h omepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/optlaseng
Optics and Lasers in Engineering
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.optlaseng.2015.03.007
0143-8166/& 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
n
Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: Hanan@utm.my (A.H. Abdullah),
Mrlee@chonbuk.ac.kr (M. Lee).
Optics and Lasers in Engineering 71 (2015) 33–41