MID-Crypt: A Cryptographic Algorithm for Advanced Medical Images Protection
Privacy-preserving of medical information (such as medical records and images) is an essential right for patients to ensure security against undesired access parties. This right is typically protected by law through firm regulations set by healthcare authorities. However, sensitive-private data usua...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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MDPI AG
2022-05-01
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| Series: | Journal of Sensor and Actuator Networks |
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| Online Access: | https://www.mdpi.com/2224-2708/11/2/24 |
| _version_ | 1797485514272538624 |
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| author | Ashraf Ahmad Yousef AbuHour Remah Younisse Yasmeen Alslman Eman Alnagi Qasem Abu Al-Haija |
| author_facet | Ashraf Ahmad Yousef AbuHour Remah Younisse Yasmeen Alslman Eman Alnagi Qasem Abu Al-Haija |
| author_sort | Ashraf Ahmad |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Privacy-preserving of medical information (such as medical records and images) is an essential right for patients to ensure security against undesired access parties. This right is typically protected by law through firm regulations set by healthcare authorities. However, sensitive-private data usually requires the application of further security and privacy mechanisms such as encipherment (encryption) techniques. ’Medical images’ is one such example of highly demanding security and privacy standards. This is due to the quality and nature of the information carried among these images, which are usually sensitive-private information with few features and tonal variety. Hence, several state-of-the-art encryption mechanisms for medical images have been proposed and developed; however, only a few were efficient and promising. This paper presents a hybrid crypto-algorithm, MID-Crypt, to secure the medical image communicated between medical laboratories and doctors’ accounts. MID-Crypt is designed to efficiently hide medical image features and provide high-security standards. Specifically, MID-Crypt uses a mix of Elliptic-curve Diffie–Hellman (ECDH) for image masking and Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) with updatable keys for image encryption. Besides, a key management module is used to organize the public and private keys, the patient’s digital signature provides authenticity, and integrity is guaranteed by using the Merkle tree. Also, we evaluated our proposed algorithm in terms of several performance indicators including, peak signal-to-noise ratio (PSNR) analysis, correlation analysis, entropy analysis, histogram analysis, and timing analysis. Consequently, our empirical results revealed the superiority of MID-Crypt scoring the best performance values for PSNR, correlation, entropy, and encryption overhead. Finally, we compared the security measures for the MID-Crypt algorithm with other studies, the comparison revealed the distinguishable security against several common attacks such as side-channel attacks (SCA), differential attacks, man-in-the-middle attacks (MITM), and algebraic attacks. |
| first_indexed | 2024-03-09T23:19:55Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-d4692f7e67804cb3abfcc665a2c179d5 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 2224-2708 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-03-09T23:19:55Z |
| publishDate | 2022-05-01 |
| publisher | MDPI AG |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Journal of Sensor and Actuator Networks |
| spelling | doaj.art-d4692f7e67804cb3abfcc665a2c179d52023-11-23T17:29:30ZengMDPI AGJournal of Sensor and Actuator Networks2224-27082022-05-011122410.3390/jsan11020024MID-Crypt: A Cryptographic Algorithm for Advanced Medical Images ProtectionAshraf Ahmad0Yousef AbuHour1Remah Younisse2Yasmeen Alslman3Eman Alnagi4Qasem Abu Al-Haija5Department of Computer Science/Cybersecurity, Princess Sumaya University for Technology (PSUT), Amman 11941, JordanJordan Design Development Bureau (JODDB), National Encryption Center, Amman 11180, JordanDepartment of Computer Science/Cybersecurity, Princess Sumaya University for Technology (PSUT), Amman 11941, JordanDepartment of Computer Science/Cybersecurity, Princess Sumaya University for Technology (PSUT), Amman 11941, JordanDepartment of Computer Science/Cybersecurity, Princess Sumaya University for Technology (PSUT), Amman 11941, JordanDepartment of Computer Science/Cybersecurity, Princess Sumaya University for Technology (PSUT), Amman 11941, JordanPrivacy-preserving of medical information (such as medical records and images) is an essential right for patients to ensure security against undesired access parties. This right is typically protected by law through firm regulations set by healthcare authorities. However, sensitive-private data usually requires the application of further security and privacy mechanisms such as encipherment (encryption) techniques. ’Medical images’ is one such example of highly demanding security and privacy standards. This is due to the quality and nature of the information carried among these images, which are usually sensitive-private information with few features and tonal variety. Hence, several state-of-the-art encryption mechanisms for medical images have been proposed and developed; however, only a few were efficient and promising. This paper presents a hybrid crypto-algorithm, MID-Crypt, to secure the medical image communicated between medical laboratories and doctors’ accounts. MID-Crypt is designed to efficiently hide medical image features and provide high-security standards. Specifically, MID-Crypt uses a mix of Elliptic-curve Diffie–Hellman (ECDH) for image masking and Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) with updatable keys for image encryption. Besides, a key management module is used to organize the public and private keys, the patient’s digital signature provides authenticity, and integrity is guaranteed by using the Merkle tree. Also, we evaluated our proposed algorithm in terms of several performance indicators including, peak signal-to-noise ratio (PSNR) analysis, correlation analysis, entropy analysis, histogram analysis, and timing analysis. Consequently, our empirical results revealed the superiority of MID-Crypt scoring the best performance values for PSNR, correlation, entropy, and encryption overhead. Finally, we compared the security measures for the MID-Crypt algorithm with other studies, the comparison revealed the distinguishable security against several common attacks such as side-channel attacks (SCA), differential attacks, man-in-the-middle attacks (MITM), and algebraic attacks.https://www.mdpi.com/2224-2708/11/2/24medical informationkey managementElliptic-curve Diffie—Hellman (ECDH)Advanced Encryption Standard (AES)Merkel tree digital signature |
| spellingShingle | Ashraf Ahmad Yousef AbuHour Remah Younisse Yasmeen Alslman Eman Alnagi Qasem Abu Al-Haija MID-Crypt: A Cryptographic Algorithm for Advanced Medical Images Protection Journal of Sensor and Actuator Networks medical information key management Elliptic-curve Diffie—Hellman (ECDH) Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) Merkel tree digital signature |
| title | MID-Crypt: A Cryptographic Algorithm for Advanced Medical Images Protection |
| title_full | MID-Crypt: A Cryptographic Algorithm for Advanced Medical Images Protection |
| title_fullStr | MID-Crypt: A Cryptographic Algorithm for Advanced Medical Images Protection |
| title_full_unstemmed | MID-Crypt: A Cryptographic Algorithm for Advanced Medical Images Protection |
| title_short | MID-Crypt: A Cryptographic Algorithm for Advanced Medical Images Protection |
| title_sort | mid crypt a cryptographic algorithm for advanced medical images protection |
| topic | medical information key management Elliptic-curve Diffie—Hellman (ECDH) Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) Merkel tree digital signature |
| url | https://www.mdpi.com/2224-2708/11/2/24 |
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