A counter mode and multi-channel based chaotic image encryption algorithm for the internet of things

To deal with the threat of image privacy leakage in the Internet of things, this paper presents a novel batch images encryption algorithm using the counter mode and a multi-channel processing scheme. We employ multi-thread technique combined with an adapter to construct a novel multi-channel processing scheme, which can encrypt four different sized images in one round. Moreover, the counter encryption mode, which can compute round keys from a plaintext related session key, is introduced to decrease the difficulty of session key management when dealing with batch images. The security tests demonstrate the exceptional performance of the proposed algorithm in terms of security, as evidenced by P-values of statistical tests far larger than 0.01, correlation coefficients and entropies of cipher images close to 0 and greater than 7.99. Additionally, the results of NPCR and UACI tests closely approximate the theoretical values 99.6094% and 33.4635%, the proposed algorithm can better resist statistical, exhaustive, differential, or even chosen plaintext attacks. Moreover, due to the novel parallel scheme with a linear time complexity of O(2W+2H), which demonstrates an acceleration of over 300% compared to existing algorithms, it only takes 2.1sto encrypt one hundred images with varying sizes. Therefore, the proposed algorithm succeeds in exceeding existing algorithms in meeting the efficiency and security requirements for encrypting batch images.