An Improved AES Algorithm: Enhancing Image Security Through Optimized Transformations

As the internet continues to expand, the amount of data being shared across the globe is rising faster than ever before. The sharing of information covers all kinds of data, from personal messages and money transfers to personal photos, graphics and pictures used in business. Today’s digital world connects users, businesses and devices, enabling data to be shared instantly. This seamless communication allows for quick access to information and enhances collaboration across various platforms. While, sharing information over online is very convenient, but it does also creates worries about privacy and security. At the time of exchanging data, there is a risk that hackers could breach systems leading to sensitive information being leaked. To protect ourselves, its important to use strong security measures to ensure our data remains safe from potential threats, especially when sharing image data. Encryption helps to protect the image data and the common methods used is the Advanced Encryption Standard(AES). In this paper, we introduce a new altered version of AES algorithm that enhances security. Modification on the AES is proposed by replacing ShiftRows Transformation to the ShiftColumns. We provide detailed results showing the security and effectiveness of our altered encryption method. The new Altered Version of AES (AVAES), we developed, makes encryption faster and having complexity. We have tested this AVAES on images, using AES-GCM to ensure the diffusion in them and also measured the effetiveness of our approach using Evaluation Metrics. Our aim is to encrypt and decrypt the image data while maintaining high image quality and strong security in a faster manner.