Title: A bio-inspired algorithm for enhancing DNA cryptography

Authors: Kheira Lakel; Fatima Bendella

Addresses: Department of Language and Literature, Faculty of Arabic Language and Literature, Higher Normal School of Bouzareah, Algeria; SIMPA Laboratory, University of Science and Technology of Oran-USTO, Oran, Algeria ' Department of Computer Science, Faculty of Mathematics and Informatics, University of Science and Technology of Oran-USTO, Oran, Algeria

Abstract: In this era, information security plays a crucial and sensitive task as this data is potentially vulnerable such that different types of attacks may happen and affects the data. This paper presents a new hybrid cryptosystem for DNA cryptography based on GA and a coding table. The encryption algorithm provides multi-layer security (jamming with spiral matrix, generating coding table, coding of DNA characters, XOR-crossover operation) for DNA sequence. The decryption algorithm follows these steps: binary and segment the ciphertext, applied XOR-crossover operation, Transform each block to ASCII code, decoding of characters, remove jamming and generate the plaintext. The performance evaluation of this algorithm is based on confusion and diffusion, avalanche effect, and encryption time. The experimental results show that these algorithms yield an average time 0.835 ms/0.78 ms for 1,000 bases. The result shows outperformance in security and a weak correlation coefficient between ciphertexts generated and plaintext.

Keywords: information security; DNA; encryption; decryption; cryptography; one time pad; ASCII code; jamming; scrambling; coding table; spiral matrix; XOR-crossover operation.

DOI: 10.1504/IJICS.2023.132779

International Journal of Information and Computer Security, 2023 Vol.21 No.3/4, pp.436 - 456

Received: 27 Jun 2022
Accepted: 07 Dec 2022
Published online: 09 Aug 2023 *

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