A Lightweight Image Encryption Algorithm Based on Chaotic Map and Random Substitution

Chaotic-maps-based image encryption methods have been a topic of research interest for a decade. However, most of the proposed methods suffer from slow encryption time or compromise on the security of the encryption to achieve faster encryption. This paper proposes a lightweight, secure, and efficient image encryption algorithm based on logistic map, permutations, and AES S-box. In the proposed algorithm, SHA-2 based on the plaintext image, a pre-shared key, and an initialization vector (IV) are used to generate the initial parameters for the logistic map. The logistic map chaotically generates random numbers, which are then used for the permutations and substitutions. The security, quality, and efficiency of the proposed algorithm are tested and analyzed using a number of metrics, such as correlation coefficient, chi-square, entropy, mean square error, mean absolute error, peak signal-to-noise ratio, maximum deviation, irregular deviation, deviation from uniform histogram, number of pixel change rate, unified average changing intensity, resistance to noise and data loss attacks, homogeneity, contrast, energy, and key space and key sensitivity analysis. Experimental results reveal that the proposed algorithm is up to 15.33x faster compared to other contemporary encryption methods.