A Multichaotic Map Approach to Image Encryption and Security Analysis
Shamsa Kanwal, Saba Inam, Amr Hussein Yousef, Maria Saba, Leila Jamel, Zaffar Ahmed Shaikh · Journal of Computer Networks and Communications · 2026
Encryption remains one of the most effective techniques for securing digital data. Over the years, researchers have explored many image encryption schemes to enhance the security of data. Existing cryptosystems still struggle to maintain an ultimate balance between efficiency, security, and resistance to attacks. Digital images contain highly sensitive and confidential information that ensuring their potential is crucial. This proposed scheme presents a cryptosystem designed for high‐security encryption of digital images. Our work approach is to introduce a novel image encryption scheme that strengthens security. A combination of color‐coding techniques, the Hill cipher, and one‐dimensional chaotic maps (sine map and logistic map) along with the Kronecker XOR product. Our algorithm firstly shifts matrix rows leftward and applies XOR using specific column entries. Randomness is enhanced by using chaotic‐based permutations. This block cipher encryption process consists of multiple phases: a diffusion phase that is based on chaotic maps, followed by key integration and the Kronecker XOR product. It ensures high security and resistance to differential attacks. The experimental findings confirm the security and efficiency of our proposed system. It demonstrates strong performance and robustness against brute force attacks. Our encryption approach achieves an NPCR of 99.58, a UACI of 33.33, a PSNR of 7.78, and an entropy of 7.99, indicating good security, high randomness, and minimal data distortion. The suggested technique effectively bridges the research gap by providing an efficient and highly secure encryption mechanism that is ideal for real‐time image protection while resisting a variety of cryptographic attacks.