On the security of an image encryption method

The security of digital images has attracted much attention, and many different image encryption methods have been proposed. Yen and Guo (see Proc. IEEE Workshop Signal Processing Systems, p.430-37, 1999) proposed a novel image encryption algorithm called BRIE (bit recirculation image encryption). This paper points out that BRIE is not secure enough from strict cryptographic viewpoint. It has been found that some defects exist in BRIE, and a known/chosen-plaintext attack can break BRIE with only one known/chosen plain-image. Experiments are made to verify the defects of BRIE and the feasibility of the attack.