Cryptanalyzing an image encryption algorithm based on autoblocking and electrocardiography

This paper performs a thorough security analysis of a chaotic image encryption algorithm based on autoblocking and electrocardiography from the view point of modern cryptography. The algorithm uses electrocardiography (ECG) signals to generate the initial key for a chaotic system and applies an autoblocking method to divide a plain image into blocks of certain sizes suitable for subsequent encryption. The designers claimed that the proposed algorithm is “strong and flexible enough for practical applications”. We find it is vulnerable to the known plaintext attack: based on one pair of a known plain-image and its corresponding cipher-image, an adversary is able to derive a mask image, which can be used as an equivalent secret key to successfully decrypt other cipher images encrypted under the same key with a non-negligible probability of 1/256. Using this as a typical counterexample, we summarize some security defects existing in many image encryption algorithms

Cryptanalysis of an Image Cipher using Multi entropy Measures and the Countermeasures

The use of same keys or equivalent keys should not be occurred in cryptographic communications because a cipher system utilising such keys to secure messages can be attacked even it possesses excellent cryptographic characteristics for extracting intelligible information from encrypted messages. Identification of crypts formed with such keys is an important task of traffic analysis of cryptographic communications to check the applicability of two-messages-on-same-key (TMSK) attack. To avoid its applicability, adequate safeguards are required. In the paper, we cryptanalyze stream encryption based cipher system and propose an intelligent identification methodology using multi-entropy measures and soft decision criteria for identification of encrypted images of same or equivalent keys. Experimental test results show that the crypts formed with same keys can be identified successfully with high precision. We also present the countermeasures against TMSK attack