Secretary Bird-Inspired Optimization of Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) and Blowfish Encryption Algorithms for Robust Data Protection

This study explores the hybridization of AES and Blowfish encryption algorithms to enhance data security, particularly for medical datasets. While combining these ciphers offers improved robustness, it also introduces challenges such as increased computational overhead, latency, and reduced throughput due to dual encryption processes. To address these issues, the Secretary Bird Optimization Algorithm (SBOA) was integrated to intelligently optimize key sizes, S-box configurations, and round parameters, improving both security and performance. Using twenty CT chest X-ray images from Kaggle.com, the model was implemented in MATLAB R2023a and evaluated based on encryption time, execution time, and throughput. Results showed that AES alone had an encryption time of 24.9954 seconds, execution time of 49.9260 seconds, and throughput of 0.9705 MB/s. Blowfish performed slower, with 53.2667 seconds encryption time, 79.7522 seconds execution time, and 0.6656 MB/s throughput. The hybrid AES–Blowfish model improved performance with 7.8765 seconds encryption time, 15.6502 seconds execution time, and 3.2550 MB/s throughput. However, the optimized SBOA–AES–Blowfish model outperformed all others, achieving 3.1791 seconds encryption time, 6.3386 seconds execution time, and 6.4905 MB/s throughput. In conclusion, the SBOA-enhanced hybrid encryption model demonstrated superior performance, offering the fastest processing and highest throughput while maintaining strong security. These findings confirm that SBOA optimization significantly improves computational efficiency, making the model highly suitable for real-time and large-scale applications such as healthcare and secure communications.