Secure image transmission is increasingly vital in the digital era, especially against emerging quantum threats. This study proposes a hybrid image encryption scheme that integrates Quantum Key Distribution (QKD) using the BB84 protocol with a combination of 7-dimensional (7D) and 2-dimensional (2D) hyperchaotic systems to achieve robust security. The BB84 protocol facilitates quantum-assisted key exchange, ensuring resistance to eavesdropping, while the hyperchaotic systems provide high entropy and complex randomness, utilized in a layered permutation-substitution encryption framework. The initial seeds for chaotic sequences are derived using a SHA-512 hash of both the input image and quantum-generated key, ensuring uniqueness and sensitivity. Experimental validation was conducted using several benchmark images. The information entropy values of the ciphered images reached up to 7.9993, indicating excellent randomness. Differential analysis showed high resistance to small perturbations, with NPCR exceeding 99.61% and UACI averaging around 33.47%, which meet standard security thresholds. Histogram and chi-square tests confirmed the uniform pixel distribution, with chi-square values below 280, satisfying the randomness criterion for 8-bit images. Furthermore, correlation coefficients of adjacent pixels dropped to near zero, evidencing effective decorrelation. The encryption scheme also demonstrated robustness to data loss, as shown by the successful decryption of partially corrupted cipher images. Robustness testing under partial data loss (200×200-pixel blocks) also demonstrated visual recoverability and algorithm resilience. Overall, the proposed BB84-assisted dual-hyperchaotic encryption scheme offers a secure and computationally effective solution for protecting sensitive image data, making it suitable for post-quantum secure communications.
Secure image transmission is increasingly vital in the digital era, especially against emerging quantum threats. This study proposes a hybrid image encryption scheme that integrates Quantum Key Distribution (QKD) using the BB84 protocol with a combination of 7-dimensional (7D) and 2-dimensional (2D) hyperchaotic systems to achieve robust security. The BB84 protocol facilitates quantum-assisted key exchange, ensuring resistance to eavesdropping, while the hyperchaotic systems provide high entropy and complex randomness, utilized in a layered permutation-substitution encryption framework. The initial seeds for chaotic sequences are derived using a SHA-512 hash of both the input image and quantum-generated key, ensuring uniqueness and sensitivity. Experimental validation was conducted using several benchmark images. The information entropy values of the ciphered images reached up to 7.9993, indicating excellent randomness. Differential analysis showed high resistance to small perturbations, with NPCR exceeding 99.61% and UACI averaging around 33.47%, which meet standard security thresholds. Histogram and chi-square tests confirmed the uniform pixel distribution, with chi-square values below 280, satisfying the randomness criterion for 8-bit images. Furthermore, correlation coefficients of adjacent pixels dropped to near zero, evidencing effective decorrelation. The encryption scheme also demonstrated robustness to data loss, as shown by the successful decryption of partially corrupted cipher images. Robustness testing under partial data loss (200×200-pixel blocks) also demonstrated visual recoverability and algorithm resilience. Overall, the proposed BB84-assisted dual-hyperchaotic encryption scheme offers a secure and computationally effective solution for protecting sensitive image data, making it suitable for post-quantum secure communications.
Satellite images are critical for ecological monitoring and national security; thus, protecting its integrity is imperative. Nonetheless, existing encryption methods struggle to balance robustness and efficiency. This paper proposes a novel quantum chaos-based image encryption scheme (QCIES) combining a 4D hyperchaotic Lorenz system (4D-HLS) and quantum Fibonacci transform (QFT) addressing these limitations. During the encryption process, we first used The Generalized Quantum Image Representation (GQIR) technique to transform a conventional color image into quantum data. Then, 4D-HLS generates complex, unpredictable keys through bifurcation and sensitivity to initial conditions. 4D-HLS complex dynamics coupled with quantum pixel reorganization provide unprecedented resistance against statistical and brute-force attacks. Additionally, QFT with a quantum adder randomly encrypts pixel locations, producing the final encrypted image. Performance evaluation was conducted using Python to analyze key metrics including histogram distribution, information entropy, and adjacent pixel correlation. Extensive security testing revealed QCIES robust performance, achieving near-ideal correlation coefficients (< 0.004), information entropy (> 7.999), NPCR (99.64%), UACI (33.56%) and massive key space [Formula: see text]. The achieved [Formula: see text] key space notably exceeds the [Formula: see text] NIST standard, while maintaining computational efficiency through optimized quantum circuit design. These innovations establish a new benchmark for satellite image transmission in critical infrastructure applications.
As the world is transitioning towards the quantum era, this research presents the Quantum Key Distribution Inspired Image Encryption (QKDIE) algorithm, an image encryption and decryption framework that leverages the BB84 quantum key distribution (QKD) protocol to enhance the security of image transmission. BB84 ensures secure key exchange through the quantum bit error rate (QBER) monitoring. A QBER of approximately 1.0% was consistently achieved across all the experiments and well below the 11% security abort threshold. The BB84 sifted key is used to derive a 256-bit ChaCha20 stream cipher key via SHA-256, providing formally IND-CPA secure encryption with a unique nonce per session. The encryption pipeline implements four successive layers: Fisher-Yates pixel permutation for spatial scrambling, a key-dependent nonlinear S-box substitution for per-pixel confusion, an invertible CBC-style row-column diffusion layer for inter-pixel avalanche propagation, and ChaCha20 stream encryption for quantum seeded bitwise transformation. The proposed method is evaluated through cryptographic security metrics including UACI, NPCR, Shannon Entropy, pixel correlation, chi-square uniformity test, avalanche effect, and known-plaintext attack simulation, alongside decryption fidelity metrics including MSE, PSNR, SSIM, and NIQE. Experimental results across four test images demonstrate UACI values of 33.46% – 36.59% , NPCR values of 99.59% – 99.63% , Shannon entropy of 7.9968–7.9995 bits per pixel, and near-zero pixel correlation in all spatial directions. All four images passed the chi-square uniformity test (values 217.77–283.94, critical value 293.25). The avalanche test confirmed 99.60% – 99.61% pixel change rate and 50.01% – 50.05% bit-level change rate with a single-bit key perturbation, satisfying the strict avalanche criterion. KPA simulation confirmed keystream independence across sessions ( 47.27% – 51.95% bit match, indistinguishable from random chance). Perfect decryption was achieved in all cases (MSE =0 ) which validates the reliability of the proposed QKDIE framework.
In the digital era, data communication security is one of the main challenges. This research proposes a new method for secure image communication, which is a mixed triple logistic map and BB84 quantum key distribution. This approach combines the strengths of classical and quantum cryptographic systems to improve security. BB84 quantum key distribution protocol for securely distributing encryption keys. The resulting key is then processed into a hash value using the SHA-256 algorithm. These hash values are converted into ASCII values, which are used to generate three key sequences using the modified logistic map. The three key sequences are combined to form a keystream used in image encryption. Several security metrics are used to evaluate encryption security, including entropy, the Chi-Square test, and pixel correlation. The analysis results show that the encrypted image has an entropy close to eight. In addition, all chi-square values smaller than 293 indicate a uniform distribution. The correlation of nearby pixels in the encrypted image is also very low, where all values are less than 0.01, which indicates the loss of local patterns in the encrypted image. These results demonstrate that the proposed method effectively secures image communications, providing high security and resistance to conventional and quantum cryptographic attacks.
Safeguarding image confidentiality is a crucial communication concern due to the valuable information that must remain inaccessible to unauthorized users. However, the imminent emergence of quantum computers has introduced pressing security concerns to current cryptography. This paper proposes a quantum-resistant cryptosystem integrating a three-qubit entanglement-based Quantum Key Distribution protocol with a chaotic Henon map to develop an image transmission system resilient to classical and quantum adversaries. This QKD employs bidirectional qubit transmission to entangle three qubits, resulting in a quantum-secured key that is double that of the E91 protocol and demonstrates exceptional eavesdropper detection capabilities via the CHSH inequality violation. A 2D Henon map is utilized to address the intrinsic vulnerabilities related to key size and security in one-dimensional logistic maps. The expanded key generates a more complex sequence employing the Henon map, ensuring the utmost security of the encryption by integrating the chaotic randomness with the cryptographic properties embedded in entanglement. The findings from various security assessments indicate that the proposed encryption is both reliable and effective. It exhibits robust resistance to differential analysis, showing NPCR at 99.6% and UACI near 50%. A colossal 10220 key space thwarts brute-force attempts, while near-zero correlation and uniform pixel-intensity distribution confirm strong statistical security, highlighting the advantages of quantum–classical cryptography protocols.
Secure data communication is in growing demand in today's 6G era. Cryptographic schemes must be employed to protect the data over the air and facilitate secure communication. This paper proposes a novel quantum image encryption algorithm with Quantum True Random Number Generation (QTRNG) and an image-dependent 6D hyperchaotic system to enhance security. RX and RZ quantum gates generated Quantum True Random key sequences by introducing an exponential phase shift to the input. The encryption process integrates multistage DNA encoding and QTRNG to develop the initial encrypted image, which is represented by Novel Enhanced Quantum Representation (NEQR). The encrypted image is hashed using SHA-384 to generate 6D keys, followed by Quantum Fibonacci and bit-level scrambling to perform further quantum encryption. This process is repeated over three stages, each employing different hyperchaotic keys, DNA rules, and operations. The encryption metrics confirm the algorithm's reliability and robustness regarding security.
This research introduces a novel cryptographic system that enhances the security of steganographic images by integrating Quantum Key Distribution (QKD) with traditional encryption. Using the E91 QKD protocol, it generates a shared secret key between parties, leveraging quantum entanglement to provide superior protection against eavesdropping. The quantum key is then hashed with the Secure Hash Algorithm (SHA) to produce a fixed-length, high-entropy key for symmetric encryption . The Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) is employed to encrypt steganographic images, which conceal critical data within digital images, adding an extra layer of security through obscurity. Experiments with images of varying resolutions (64 × 64 to 512 × 512 pixels) show consistent encryption performance. The encrypted images exhibit high randomness, with an average entropy of 7.9929. Differential attack resilience is demonstrated by a Number of Pixels Change Rate (NPCR) averaging 99.6928% and a Unified Average Changing Intensity (UACI) of 56.1549%. The average E91 protocol key generation time is 5.78 s with a key rate of 7.43 bps. Encryption and decryption times for test images are 0.00149 and 0.00175 s, respectively. This research combines quantum and classical cryptography with steganography, providing a robust security framework highly resistant to both quantum and classical threats.