Highly Trustworthy In-Sensor Cryptography for Image Encryption and Authentication

Abstract

Theprevailing transmission of image information overthe Internetof Things demands trustworthy cryptography for high security and privacy.State-of-the-art security modules are usually physically separatedfrom the sensory terminals that capture images, which unavoidablyexposes image information to various attacks during the transmissionprocess. Here we develop in-sensor cryptography that enables capturingimages and producing security keys in the same hardware devices. Thegenerated key inherently binds to the captured images, which givesrise to highly trustworthy cryptography. Using the intrinsic electronicand optoelectronic characteristics of the 256 molybdenum disulfidephototransistor array, we can harvest electronic and optoelectronicbinary keys with a physically unclonable function and further upgradethem into multiple-state ternary and double-binary keys, exhibitinghigh uniformity, uniqueness, randomness, and coding capacity. Thisin-sensor cryptography enables highly trustworthy image encryptionto avoid passive attacks and image authentication to prevent unauthorizededitions.