{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,7,28]],"date-time":"2026-07-28T13:27:14Z","timestamp":1785245234163,"version":"3.55.0"},"reference-count":48,"publisher":"MDPI AG","issue":"9","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2025,9,6]],"date-time":"2025-09-06T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1757116800000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["Symmetry"],"abstract":"<jats:p>The growing digitization of healthcare has amplified concerns about the privacy and security of medical images, as conventional encryption methods often fail to provide sufficient protection. To address this gap, we propose a privacy-enhancing image encryption algorithm that integrates SHA-256 hashing, block-wise processing (16 \u00d7 16 with zero-padding), DNA encoding with XOR operations, and logistic map-driven key generation into a unified framework. This synergistic design balances efficiency and robustness by embedding data integrity verification, ensuring high sensitivity to initial conditions, and achieving strong diffusion through dynamic DNA rules. Experimental results confirm that the scheme achieves high NPCR (0.997), UACI (0.289), entropy (7.995), and PSNR (27.89 dB), outperforming comparable approaches while maintaining scalability to large image formats and robustness under compression (JPEG quality factors 90 and 70). These findings demonstrate that the proposed method offers an efficient and resilient solution for securing medical images, ensuring confidentiality, integrity, and practical applicability in real-world healthcare environments.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3390\/sym17091470","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2025,9,8]],"date-time":"2025-09-08T08:06:32Z","timestamp":1757318792000},"page":"1470","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/mdpi_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":4,"title":["A Privacy-Enhancing Image Encryption Algorithm for Securing Medical Images"],"prefix":"10.3390","volume":"17","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-9929-2116","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Ammar","family":"Odeh","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Computer Science, Princess Sumaya University of Technology, Amman 1196, Jordan"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-8286-1829","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Anas","family":"Abu Taleb","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Computer Science, Princess Sumaya University of Technology, Amman 1196, Jordan"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Tareq","family":"Alhajahjeh","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Faculty of Computing, Engineering and Media, De Montfort University, Leicester LE1 9BH, UK"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-1511-7805","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Francisco","family":"Navarro","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Faculty of Computing, Engineering and Media, De Montfort University, Leicester LE1 9BH, UK"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-5883-6113","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Aladdin","family":"Ayesh","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Faculty of Computing, University of Aberdeen, King\u2019s College, Aberdeen AB24 3FX, UK"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0003-2684-0887","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Miad","family":"Faezipour","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"School of Engineering Technology, Electrical and Computer Engineering Technology, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN 47907, USA"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]}],"member":"1968","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2025,9,6]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref_1","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Odeh, A., Taleb, A.A., Alhajahjeh, T., and Navarro, F. 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