Meaningful color image encryption algorithm based on compressive sensing and chaotic map

At present, most image encryption algorithms protect the security of the plain images by encrypting them into visually meaningless cipher images similar to noises. However, noise-like images can easily attract the attention of an attacker, thus increasing the risk of being broken. Based on this, a visually meaningful image encryption algorithm based on compressive sensing and chaotic map is proposed in this paper. The proposed image encryption algorithm consists of three steps: compression, encryption and hiding. Here, the compression part uses the compressive sensing technology to compress the plain image. Then, the encryption part transforms the compressed image into a meaningless noise-like image by confusion operation. Finally, the hiding process is to embed the encrypted image into a carrier image to achieve a visual hiding effect and reduce the attention of the attacker to the carrier image. Experimental results and analysis show that the proposed algorithm has satisfactory hiding effect and high-quality information reconstruction and extraction. Especially, the values of PSNR can surpass 30 dB in the tests.