{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,1,30]],"date-time":"2026-01-30T07:34:39Z","timestamp":1769758479201,"version":"3.49.0"},"reference-count":32,"publisher":"MDPI AG","issue":"11","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2020,5,31]],"date-time":"2020-05-31T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1590883200000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"funder":[{"DOI":"10.13039\/100009392","name":"Prince Sattam bin Abdulaziz University","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","award":["Advanced Computational Intelligence & Intelligent Systems Engineering (ACIISE) Research Group Project Number 2019\/01\/9862"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["Advanced Computational Intelligence & Intelligent Systems Engineering (ACIISE) Research Group Project Number 2019\/01\/9862"]}],"id":[{"id":"10.13039\/100009392","id-type":"DOI","asserted-by":"publisher"}]}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["Sensors"],"abstract":"<jats:p>Traditionally, tamper-proof steganography involves using efficient protocols to encrypt the stego cover image and\/or hidden message prior to embedding it into the carrier object. However, as the inevitable transition to the quantum computing paradigm beckons, its immense computing power will be exploited to violate even the best non-quantum, i.e., classical, stego protocol. On its part, quantum walks can be tailored to utilise their astounding \u2018quantumness\u2019 to propagate nonlinear chaotic behaviours as well as its sufficient sensitivity to alterations in primary key parameters both important properties for efficient information security. Our study explores using a classical (i.e., quantum-inspired) rendition of the controlled alternate quantum walks (i.e., CAQWs) model to fabricate a robust image steganography protocol for cloud-based E-healthcare platforms by locating content that overlays the secret (or hidden) bits. The design employed in our technique precludes the need for pre and\/or post encryption of the carrier and secret images. Furthermore, our design simplifies the process to extract the confidential (hidden) information since only the stego image and primary states to run the CAQWs are required. We validate our proposed protocol on a dataset of medical images, which exhibited remarkable outcomes in terms of their security, good visual quality, high resistance to data loss attacks, high embedding capacity, etc., making the proposed scheme a veritable strategy for efficient medical image steganography.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3390\/s20113108","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2020,6,2]],"date-time":"2020-06-02T09:19:27Z","timestamp":1591089567000},"page":"3108","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/mdpi_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":80,"title":["A Robust Quasi-Quantum Walks-based Steganography Protocol for Secure Transmission of Images on Cloud-based E-healthcare Platforms"],"prefix":"10.3390","volume":"20","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0003-4739-0037","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Bassem","family":"Abd-El-Atty","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Centre of Excellence in Cybersecurity, Quantum Information Processing, and Artificial Intelligence, Menoufia University, Shebin El-Koom 32511, Egypt"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-4964-6609","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Abdullah M.","family":"Iliyasu","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Electrical Engineering Department, College of Engineering, Prince Sattam Bin Abdulaziz University, Al-Kharj 11942, Saudi Arabia"},{"name":"School of Computing, Tokyo Institute of Technology, Yokohama 226-8502, Japan"},{"name":"School of Computer Science and Technology, Changchun University of Science and Technology, Changchun 130022, China"}]},{"given":"Haya","family":"Alaskar","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Computer Science Department, Prince Sattam Bin Abdulaziz University, Al-Kharj 11942, Saudi Arabia"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-5068-2033","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Ahmed A.","family":"Abd El-Latif","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Centre of Excellence in Cybersecurity, Quantum Information Processing, and Artificial Intelligence, Menoufia University, Shebin El-Koom 32511, Egypt"},{"name":"Mathematics and Computer Science Department, Faculty of Science, Menoufia University, P.O. Box 32511, Shebin El-Koom 32511, Egypt"},{"name":"School of Information Technology and Computer Science, Nile University, 26th July Corridor, Sheikh Zayed City, Giza 12588, Egypt"}]}],"member":"1968","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2020,5,31]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref_1","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"16","DOI":"10.1016\/j.future.2017.09.002","article-title":"PPDP: An efficient and privacy-preserving disease prediction scheme in cloud-based e-Healthcare system","volume":"79","author":"Zhang","year":"2018","journal-title":"Futur. Gener. Comput. Syst."},{"key":"ref_2","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"511","DOI":"10.1016\/j.future.2018.12.044","article-title":"Privacy-friendly platform for healthcare data in cloud based on blockchain environment","volume":"95","author":"Basu","year":"2019","journal-title":"Futur. Gener. Comput. 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