Security of Digital Images Based on Stream Cipher and MDS Matrix

Stream ciphers are extensively used over a wide range of applications including security of digital data. In this paper, a method for securing different types of images (binary, gray scale, true color and index) based on stream cipher (RC4A) and MDS (Maximum Distance Separable) matrix is proposed. The proposed scheme is based on the cryptographic Permutation-Substitution Network (PSN) and hence achieves Shannon’s confusion-diffusion characteristics required for a robust encryption algorithm. The scheme encrypts a digital image into a random-like image from human visual as well as statistical point of view. Several encryption evaluation metrics are applied on test images to empirically assess the performance and efficiency of the proposed method. The consequences of these statistical and security tests support the concreteness of the proposed approach.