S-Boxes design based on the Lu-Chen system and their application in image encryption

The substitution box (S-Box) plays a fundamental role in cryptographic algorithms. In this article, the Lu-Chen system is used to design a chaotic S-Box. We design two S-Boxes, one based on the rotation algorithm relative to the rows (or columns) and the other based on the Zigzag transformation. The performance of the new S-Boxes is evaluated with the bijective, nonlinearity, strict avalanche criterion, output bit independence criterion, differential approximation probability, linear approximation probability, algebraic degree and not having a fixed point and opposite fixed point. The analysis results show that the proposed S-Boxes have suitable cryptographic properties. In addition, an image encryption algorithm based on two generated S-Boxed, and a generalized Lai–Massey structure is presented. Experimental results show that the proposed method has achieved acceptable security. © The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2024.