Quantized DCT Coefficient Category Address Encryption for JPEG Image

Digital image encryption is widely used for image data security. JPEG standard compresses image with great performance on reducing file size. Thus, to encrypt an image in JPEG format we should keep the quality of original image and reduced size. This paper proposes a JPEG image encryption scheme based on quantized DC and non-zero AC coefficients inner category scrambling. Instead of coefficient value encryption, the address of coefficient is encrypted to get the address of cipher text. Then 8*8 blocks are shuffled. Chaotic iteration is employed to generate chaotic sequences for address scrambling and block shuffling. Analysis of simulation shows the proposed scheme is resistant to common attacks. Moreover, the proposed method keeps the file size of the encrypted image in an acceptable range compared with the plain text. To enlarge the cipher text possible space and improve the resistance to sophisticated attacks, several additional procedures are further developed. Contrast experiments verify these procedures can refine the proposed scheme and achieve significant improvements.