Genetic Algorithm and Chaotic Maps based Visually Meaningful Image Encryption

The security of data is the main challenge these days. The more robust and efficient encryption algorithm is a need for the emerging technology. The combination of a genetic algorithm and chaotic maps are used in this work to encrypt the digital image. The best encrypted image among generations in this algorithm is created by the genetic algorithm. It is the one optimized with lowest correlation coefficient. This image is hidden into a reference image using DWT(Discrete Wavelet Transform) transform creating a visually meaningful encrypted image. This is an unique way that genetic algorithm is used in generating an encrypted image and making it a visually meaningful encrypted image. The genetic algorithm has given a better security analysis results to the proposed algorithm. It has given high resistance to the attacks and does not allow the data accessible to the unauthorized people. This makes the proposed method useful to transmit data or store data in a more secure way. The results for statistical analysis and differential analysis are evaluated and excellent performance of these parameters for the algorithm can be seen.