Color image security technique combining encryption and data hiding for healthcare applications

Area of Science:

• Digital Image Security
• Medical Informatics
• Cybersecurity

Background:

• Digital images are crucial in healthcare but pose security risks.
• Protecting sensitive medical image data is a critical challenge.
• Internet technologies increase the convenience but also the vulnerability of data transmission and storage.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop a secure and usable medical image security technique.
• To combine encryption and data hiding for enhanced protection.
• To ensure the confidentiality and availability of medical images.

Main Methods:

• A novel cascading key generation using deep learning for image encryption.
• Encryption of sensitive chrominance information for reduced time cost and enhanced security.
• Concealment of confidential information in the chrominance portion for stego images.
• Thumbnail-preserving encryption (TPE) applied to the luminance portion.

Main Results:

• The proposed method demonstrates effectiveness on standard medical datasets.
• The key generation approach offers high unpredictability and a large key space.
• The technique shows strong data-hiding capabilities and robust TPE performance.

Conclusions:

• The developed method is highly suitable for secure healthcare applications.
• It addresses the critical issue of medical information security.
• The combination of encryption, data hiding, and TPE enhances usability and confidentiality.