Abstract
Data protection is regarded as one of the biggest issues facing companies that have been using public data for a long time. Numerous encryption techniques have been used to address these issues and safeguard data from any malicious attempts and assaults. A substitution box (S-box) is the basic component for modern block ciphers, which helps to ensure robust security of plain data while encryption and permits its lawful decipherment. The goal of this paper is to recommend an effective, original, and straightforward technique for the creation of robust S-boxes. A sample S-box is generated in the proposed work using the word "UNITY" but other words can also be used to generate many powerful S-boxes. The ASCII code is used to translate the word "UNITY" into binary form, after which a distinct matrix is constructed for each character of the word. In the next phase, a linear fractional transformation is constructed using these matrices, which is then utilized to generate the S-box. The constructed S-box was then evaluated against typical security standards to support its high cryptographic authority. The generated S-box's statistical and algebraic resilience is demonstrated by its very low linear probability and differential probability scores of 0.125 and 0.039, respectively, and a high non-linearity score of 111.5. To evaluate the effectiveness of the image encryption scheme, digital images are encoded using the created S-box. The performance and comparative research demonstrate that the suggested S-box is a real candidate for applications in the field of image encryption and has a stronger performance base.