THE ROLE AND FUTURE OF IMAGE ENCRYPTION IN DIGITAL SECURITY

The protection of digital data is becoming increasingly critical due to the rise in cyber threats. Particularly, image-based data is vulnerable to unauthorized access and cyberattacks, necessitating their protection. Today, image data is used in various fields, from credit card information to biometric data, military satellite imagery to medical images, and the security of this data is of great importance. Therefore, image encryption is considered an effective method for ensuring data privacy and security. The security of digital images is a critical issue for both individual and corporate users. While individuals seek to protect their personal photos and private documents, companies strive to safeguard trade secrets and customer information. Encrypting images is a widely used method to enhance data security and prevent unauthorized access. With the increasing use of social media, digital photography has become widespread, significantly increasing the need for large storage capacities. Thanks to technological advancements, storage processes are now largely carried out through cloud systems. Cloud storage systems allow different types of data to be stored virtually and cater to a broad user base. However, these systems often do not apply any encryption processes to ensure the privacy and security of stored photos (Liu & Dong, 2012). Encryption is a protection method that transforms data into an unreadable format, thereby securing it. This ensures that only authorized individuals can access the data, maintaining security and privacy. Authorized individuals can access encrypted data using specific decryption methods. Ensuring the security of multimedia data transmitted over digital networks has become an important topic for researchers and security experts today (Kumari et al., 2017). Today, ensuring data security and protecting it during transmission has become a fundamental requirement for many sectors. Images used in medical, military, and remote sensing fields can contain important and sensitive information (Ceyhan et al., 2021). Encryption techniques are used to ensure the integrity of such data and prevent potential security breaches. Encryption methods vary based on criteria such as speed, processing load, complexity, memory requirements, cost, information loss, and resistance to attacks. Therefore, the selection of the correct encryption method plays a crucial role in ensuring data security