Color image encryption using skew tent map and hyper chaotic system of 6th-order CNN

The paper designs a color image encryption scheme based on skew tent map and hyper chaotic system of 6th-order CNN. The essence of the image encryption is to confuse and diffuse the pixels, the skew tent map is applied to generate the confusion sequence, and the hyper chaotic system of 6th-order CNN is applied to generate the diffusion sequence, for 6 state variables in the system, there are total 120 combinations. For each pixel of the plain image, one combination is chosen to encryption the red, green and blue components, and the combination is determined by one of the state variables. Each pixel is encrypted by the cipher value of the previous pixel and the combination value of the CNN system. Experimental results and security analysis demonstrate that the scheme can achieve good encryption result and larger key space, and can resist common attacks, so the scheme can be applied in secure communication to enhance the security of transmitting image.