A comprehensive survey on image encryption: Taxonomy, challenges, and future directions

Image encryption is a critical component of modern data security, ensuring the confidentiality, integrity, and privacy of sensitive visual content. In this paper, we present a comprehensive survey on image encryption, exploring various encryption algorithms, their strengths, weaknesses, and real-world applications. We begin by providing a background on image encryption, highlighting its importance in safeguarding image data from unauthorized access and tampering. We discuss symmetric, asymmetric, and hybrid encryption techniques, analyzing their suitability for different scenarios. Evaluation metrics for assessing encryption algorithms are discussed, emphasizing the importance of selecting appropriate metrics to measure security and performance. Additionally, we explore the challenges faced in image encryption, such as key management and computational complexity. The survey also delves into potential future directions in image encryption, including robustness against cryptanalysis, quantum image encryption, and multimedia encryption. Furthermore, we discuss the importance of image encryption in various industries, such as military, healthcare, finance, journalism, and intellectual property protection. Real-world use cases are presented, highlighting scenarios where image encryption is crucial for maintaining confidentiality, integrity, and privacy. Finally, we conclude by summarizing the survey findings and identifying potential areas for further research and improvement in image encryption. This comprehensive survey serves as a valuable resource for researchers, practitioners, and decision-makers in the field of image security, facilitating the development of more secure and efficient image encryption solutions to meet the increasing demand for data protection and privacy in the digital age.