Fast encryption of image data using chaotic Kolmogorov flows

Abstract

To guarantee security and privacy in image and video archival applications, efficient bulk encryption techniques are necessary which are easily implementable in soft- and hardware and are able to cope with the vast amounts of data involved. Experience has shown that block-oriented symmetric product ciphers constitute an adequate design paradigm for resolving this task, since they can offer a very high level of security as well as very high encryption rates. In this contribution we introduce a new product cipher which encrypts large blocks of plaintext by repeated intertwined application of substitution and permutation operations. While almost all of the current product ciphers use fixed (predefined) permutation operations on small data blocks, our approach involves parametrizable (keyed) permutations on large data blocks (whole images) induced by specific chaotic systems (Kolmogorov flows). By combining these highly unstable dynamics with an adaption of a very fast shift register based pseudo-random number generator, we obtain a new class of computationally secure product ciphers which offer many features that make them superior to contemporary bulk encryption systems when aiming at efficient image and video data encryption.