Hybrid LWT-SVD Watermarking Optimized Using Metaheuristic Algorithms along with Encryption for Medical Image Security

Medical image security provides challenges and opportunities, watermarking and encryption of medical images provides the necessary control over the flow of medical information. In this paper a dual security approach is employed .A medical image is considered as watermark and is watermarked inside a natural image. This approach is to wean way the potential attacker by disguising the medical image as a natural image. To further enhance the security the watermarked image is encrypted using encryption algorithms. In this paper a multi–objective optimization approach optimized using different metaheuristic approaches like Genetic Algorithm (GA), Differential Evolution ( DE) and Bacterial Foraging Optimization (BFOA) is proposed. Such optimization helps in preserving the structural integrity of the medical images, which is of utmost importance. The water marking is proposed to be implemented using both Lifted Wavelet Transforms (LWT) and Singular Value Decomposition (SVD) technique. The encryption is done using RSA and AES encryption algorithms. A Graphical User Interface (GUI) which enables the user to have ease of operation in loading the image, watermark it, encrypt it and also retrieve the original image whenever necessary is also designed and presented in this paper.