A joint watermarking/encryption algorithm for verifying medical image integrity and authenticity in both encrypted...

Area of Science:

• Medical Imaging
• Information Security
• Digital Watermarking

Background:

• Medical image security is crucial for patient data privacy and diagnostic accuracy.
• Existing methods often compromise image accessibility or security during encryption.
• Verifying medical image integrity and origin in encrypted domains presents significant challenges.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop a joint watermarking and encryption algorithm for medical images.
• To enable verification of image integrity and origin in both spatial and encrypted domains.
• To ensure compatibility with existing medical imaging standards.

Main Methods:

• A hybrid approach combining Quantization Index Modulation (QIM) for watermarking and Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) in Cipher Block Chaining (CBC) mode for encryption.
• Implementation of a substitutive watermarking technique integrated with a block cipher algorithm.
• Testing on 8-bit encoded Ultrasound images.

Main Results:

• The proposed algorithm successfully verifies medical image integrity and origin while the image remains encrypted.
• Experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness of the joint watermarking/encryption scheme on Ultrasound images.
• The solution is compliant with or transparent to the Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine (DICOM) standard.

Conclusions:

• The proposed joint watermarking and encryption algorithm offers a robust solution for securing medical images.
• It provides reliable verification of image authenticity and integrity without compromising encryption.
• The DICOM compliance ensures seamless integration into existing healthcare IT infrastructures.