Summary: | Cryptography entails the practice of designing mathematical algorithms to secure data communication over insecure networks in the presence of adversaries. In this aspect, a cryptographic algorithm encrypts the confidential data and converts it into a non-readable text for adversaries. Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) is the most effective encryption algorithm proposed till now. Substitution-box (S-box) is the most crucial and only nonlinear component in AES (or any cryptographic algorithm), which provides data confusion. A highly nonlinear S-box offers high confidentiality and security against cryptanalysis attacks; hence, the design of S-box is very crucial in any encryption algorithm. To address this challenge, we propose the action of matrices (conforming to the basis of P<sub>7</sub> [Z<sub>2</sub>]) on the Galois field GF (2<sup>8</sup>). Consequently, a novel algebraic technique for S-box construction to generate highly nonlinear 8 × 8 S-boxes based on by our proposed algorithm, we obtain 1.324×10<sup>14</sup> different S-boxes. Standard S-box tests analyze the cryptographic strength of our proposed S-boxes. The examined results show that the proposed S-boxes possess state-of-the-art cryptographic properties. Moreover, we also demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed S-boxes in image encryption applications using the majority logic criterion.
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