A Novel and Secure 3D Colour Medical Image Encryption Technique Using 3D Hyperchaotic Map, S-box and Discrete Wavelet Transform

Over the past two decades, there has been a substantial increase in the use of the Internet of Medical Things (IoMT). In the smart healthcare setting, patients’ data can be quickly collected, stored and processed through insecure medium such as the internet or cloud computing. To address this issue, researchers have developed a range of encryption algorithms to protect medical image data, however these remain vulnerable to brute force and differential cryptanalysis attacks by eavesdroppers. In this study, we propose an efficient approach to enhance the security of medical image transmission by transforming the ciphertext image into a visually meaningful image. The proposed algorithm uses a 3D hyperchaotic system to generate three chaotic sequences for permutation and diffusion, followed by the application of a substitution box (S Box) to increase redundancy. Additionally, the proposed study employed discrete wavelet transform (DWT) to transform ciphertext image into a visually meaningful image. This final image is not only secure but also improves its resistance to cyberattacks. The proposed encryption model demonstrates strong security performance, with key metrics including Unified Average Changing Intensity (UACI) of 36.17% and Number of Pixels Change Rate (NPCR) of 99.57%, highlighting its effectiveness in ensuring secure medical image transmission.