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Volume 1, Issue 1, ICCK Transactions on Information Security and Cryptography
Volume 1, Issue 1, 2025
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ICCK Transactions on Information Security and Cryptography, Volume 1, Issue 1, 2025: 3-12

Free to Read | Research Article | 31 July 2025
Joint Compression and Encryption of Virtual Machine Images Using LZMA and Chaotic Maps
1 Department of Cyber Security, Pakistan Navy Engineering College, National University of Sciences and Technology, Karachi 75350, Pakistan
2 Cyber Security Center, Prince Mohammad Bin Fahd University, Al-Khobar, Saudi Arabia
* Corresponding Author: Muhammad Usama, [email protected]
Received: 02 July 2025, Accepted: 05 July 2025, Published: 31 July 2025  
Abstract
The exponential growth in security and storage requirements has led to increasing demand for high-performance solutions, particularly in managing large-scale data objects such as big binaries. Virtual Machines (VMs), a prime example of such binaries, are widely employed across desktops and dynamic server environments to deliver isolated execution contexts while minimizing hardware overhead. However, the proliferation of big binaries imposes significant challenges on both storage infrastructure and secure data transmission mechanisms. To address these issues, this paper proposes a novel "Combined Big Binaries Compression and Encryption" (CBBCE) scheme that jointly performs compression and encryption in a unified framework. The proposed approach integrates Lempel–Ziv–Markov chain algorithm (LZMA) for efficient compression with a stream cipher-like encryption mechanism. A chaotic logistic map is employed as a key-controlled pseudorandom bitstream generator due to its high sensitivity to initial conditions, ergodicity, and long-period randomness. The compressed data stream is subsequently encrypted using this pseudorandom sequence to ensure confidentiality. Experimental evaluations demonstrate that the CBBCE approach achieves competitive compression ratios and enhanced security properties when compared to conventional sequential compression-then-encryption schemes. The proposed method is particularly well-suited for secure storage and transmission of large binary files, offering an effective trade-off between performance, security, and storage efficiency.

Keywords
chaos
compression
encryption
secure compression
compression and encryption
big binaries
virtual machines

Data Availability Statement
Data will be made available on request.

Funding
This work was supported without any funding.

Conflicts of Interest
The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

Ethical Approval and Consent to Participate
Not applicable.

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Cite This Article
APA Style
Usama, M., & Ahmad, J. (2025). Joint Compression and Encryption of Virtual Machine Images Using LZMA and Chaotic Maps. ICCK Transactions on Information Security and Cryptography, 1(1), 3–12. https://doi.org/10.62762/TISC.2025.148753

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