Hybrid image encryption scheme for secure E-health systems

DNA computing is an area of natural computing inspired by molecular biology. It can be used to perform arithmetic and logic operations on information encoded as DNA strands. Due to the rapid development of network technology, E-health care services are helpful for all patients from anywhere at any time. Patients can use these services through a public channel. The security of patients’ privacy is therefore an essential issue in E-health care. In this paper, an encryption scheme is proposed for hiding patient information in a medical image using the Least Significant Bit algorithm, which involves hiding data in the least bit of image pixels. The image is then compressed with a key which is generated from a combination of six stages of chaotic maps and DNA encoding rules that result in encoding data into a DNA format. The proposed security system was applied to six different medical images, including X-ray images, CT images, and MRI images. The results have been evaluated using several evaluation metrics. The proposed scheme appears to be robust.