Robust and Secure Dual Watermarking for Improved Protection and Preservation of Sensitive Healthcare Data

With the advancement of modern technology, the use of transmitting forms has increased. As a result, electronic patient records (EPRs) are transmitted throughout the Internet platform via wired and wireless communication routes. The frequent exchange of sensitive data across online platforms can pose a number of concerns, including security vulnerabilities, storage/bandwidth issues, noise distortion in transmission channels, and other issues. As a result, in the healthcare industry, EPR protection and preservation are key concerns. Digital watermarking is currently a feasible solution for providing digital image copyright protection. However, the effectiveness of invisible watermarking techniques in the face of malicious or unintentional attacks is still a challenge. Dual watermarking involves embedding robust and fragile watermarks in the same cover image, providing a way to integrate copyright protection and integrity verification into a single scheme. This paper proposes a method for detecting and recovering from image tampering using self-embedding dual watermarking. The dual watermarking is implemented by using NSST and SVD transforms to conceal one watermark image into the other. The dual watermark is then embedded into the cover image using NSST, BMEMD, and MSVD for improved imperceptibility and robustness compared to existing works. Encryption is applied to enhance the method’s security and maintain the integrity of the information. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed method performs better against various attacks and can withstand integrity attacks.