A novel social media voice message encryption algorithm based on a fourth-order magic square in GF(28)

• Mohammed M. Alezzi,
• Weiping Wang,
• Abdul Monem S. Rahma,
• Mazen R. Hassan,
• Hasnain Almashhadani,

Vol. 20, No. 3, March 31, 2026
10.3837/tiis.2026.03.017, Download Paper (Free):

• AES
• cryptography
• fourth-order magic square
• voice message

Abstract

Audio files play a significant role in our daily electronic use, particularly in social media applications. Advanced technology is urgently needed to secure these files. To ensure high technical security, an audio file, especially a voice message, should be encrypted before being transmitted over the Internet for communication purposes. To improve the efficiency, speed, and security of voice message encryption, the authors developed an encryption algorithm to encrypt offline voice messages. This is especially true of those sent on social media like WhatsApp. This algorithm uses block encryption based on fourth-order magic square technology, replacing the MixColumn function in the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES). The latter considers encoding audio files with the irreducible polynomial of the finite field GF(28). The technique involves using an eight-cell key and eight cells of voice messages, followed by multiple rounds of fourth-order magic square (MS4) operation. After that, the voice messages generated in the first round will be considered input for subsequent rounds. Consequently, complexity and, in turn, the speed are improved significantly with (25615)10 × (2568), where r refers to the total number of rounds. Temporal complexity and encryption quality are assessed based on the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) criteria, and the peak signal-to-noise ratio of differential attacks is calculated. The suggested encryption method surpasses standard AES in complexity and efficiency.

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