Enhanced image encryption using AES algorithm with CBC mode: a secure and efficient approach

In recent times, the necessity for secure communication and data transfer has witnessed a significant surge owing to the widespread usage of digital devices and the internet. Encryption is one of the most commonly employed techniques for securing data, which involves transforming plain data into a scrambled form that can only be deciphered with the correct decryption key. This paper presents a method for encrypting digital images using symmetric key cryptography. The proposed method employs the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) block cipher in Cipher block chaining (CBC) mode to encrypt the image data, along with a random Initialization Vector (IV) and Key. Furthermore, the image data is padded using the PKCS7 padding scheme to ensure that the block cipher operates on blocks of fixed size. The proposed encryption method is implemented in Python using the cryptography library and tested on sample images. The experimental outcomes show that the suggested approach offers secure and effective encryption of digital images, with negligible overheads in terms of time and space complexity. The proposed method can be utilized in various applications that require secure image transfer and storage, such as e-commerce, medical imaging, and confidential document exchange.