Stream cipher for binary image encryption using Ant Colony Optimization based key generation

Encryption of binary images is essential since it is vulnerable to eavesdropping in wired and wireless networks. The security of data becomes important since the communications over open network occur frequently. This paper focuses on encryption of binary image using a stream cipher method. In this paper we propose an Ant Colony Optimization (ACO) based approach of generating keys for encryption. The binary image is represented in a text form and encrypted using a stream cipher method. A novel technique termed Ant Colony Optimization Key Generation Binary Image Encryption (AKGBE) algorithm employs a character code table for encoding the keys and the plain text representing the binary image. The main advantage of this approach is that it reduces the number of keys to be stored and distributed. Experimental results demonstrating AKGBE’s encrypting binary images of different sizes and the comparison of its performance with other stream cipher methods are presented. © 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.