DNA Computing: A Breakthrough in Image Cryptography - A Comprehensive Review

Deoxyribonucleic acid-DNA computing, an interdisciplinary field at the frontier between molecular biology and computer science, has become a revolutionary field. DNA computation provides a new approach to data computation and cryptography. The inherent properties of DNA include high parallelism, excellent data density, and stability; it can hence be considered one of the ideal candidates in cryptographic applications, especially in image encryption. This review provides recent advances in DNA-based cryptographic algorithms, their fusion with chaotic systems, and also their applications to practical scenarios that enhance data security. Different algorithms are studied that exploit the encoding capability of DNA, such as substitution, transposition, and hybrid models including crossover and mutation. It also discusses DNA for secure image transmission in applications like healthcare, industrial IoT, and cloud environments. The latter presents scalability challenges and problems regarding key generation along with certain implementation constraints, while at the same time pointing future research toward a perspective of opening up for stronger cryptography.