All the digital data stored, copied and distributed on the network have their own specific information, and digital images, as one of the fastest multimedia formats that can deliver their information in a visual way, particularly have a great amount of information. Most of the digital images transmitted through network are private, and especially, those with sensitive information such as medical diagnostic images can lead to irrevocable disaster when they are disclosed to be abused. Therefore, it is very important for digital images to be secured.
In general, digital images, when compared to text data, are characterized by very large capacity, high overlap, and strong correlation between adjacent pixels. On the other hand, digital image data requires strong real-time property in communication, storage and distribution, and hence, it requires a prompt and secure image encryption algorithm. From this necessity, many precedent researchers have proposed some improved chaotic maps and applied them to various image encryption algorithms.
Song Ok Chol, an institute head at the Institute of Information Technology, configured a novel 3D-ICCM (3D Infinite Collapse Coupling Map) with better chaotic performance by combining three 1D infinite collapse maps that has the best chaotic characteristics among the existing 1D chaotic maps, and analyzed its chaotic characteristics through a comparison with the previous 3D-ICM. Then, he proposed a new simple-structured pixel-level image encryption algorithm and evaluated its performance by applying the proposed 3D-ICCM.
The experimental simulation and analysis show that the proposed 3D-ICCM and image encryption algorithms have excellent performance.
For more information, please refer to his paper “Robust pixel-level image encryption algorithm using 3D infinite collapse coupling map” in “Multimedia Tools and Applications” (SCI).