Using the 3D Protein Structure as Key to Encrypt Images

Abstract

In the digital world, information is exposed anytime, anywhere, to everybody, hence its privacy is a crucial matter. No matter how complicated the encryption algorithm is, it requires a strong and hard-to-break encryption key. Since the three-dimensional protein sequence structures are usually highly conserved, even better than DNA sequences, this work presents an innovative scheme for implementing the protein sequence and structural to build protein data tables that are then used to generate extremely strong encryption-keys. An image-encryption scheme designed to implement such encryption keys is developed and produced compatible security strength with existing encryption schemes. Prototype experiments resulted in an average normalized mean absolute error of 66.84%, an average peak signal to noise ratio of 6.85 dB, and comparable entropy with other cryptosystems. The obtained results make this scheme a promising color image protection technique for various applications.