Cryptanalyzing a RGB image encryption algorithm based on DNA encoding and chaos map

TL;DR

This paper critically re-evaluates a DNA-encoding and chaos map-based RGB image encryption algorithm, demonstrating it can be compromised with minimal known plaintext, revealing significant security flaws through theoretical and experimental analysis.

Contribution

It introduces a known-plaintext attack that efficiently breaks the encryption with only one known image, exposing critical security vulnerabilities.

Findings

The encryption can be broken with only one known plaintext.

Two additional security defects are identified.

The attack is supported by rigorous analysis and experiments.

Abstract

Recently, a RGB image encryption algorithm based on DNA encoding and chaos map has been proposed. It was reported that the encryption algorithm can be broken with four pairs of chosen plain-images and the corresponding cipher-images. This paper re-evaluates the security of the encryption algorithm, and finds that the encryption algorithm can be broken efficiently with only one known plain-image. The effectiveness of the proposed known-plaintext attack is supported by both rigorous theoretical analysis and experimental results. In addition, two other security defects are also reported.