In the digital age, securing multimedia content, especially images, is crucial for maintaining confidentiality and privacy. This paper presents a novel image encryption technique that combines the Arnold cat map with a new 1D chaotic map derived from sine and tent maps. The proposed method incorporates both confusion and diffusion phases to achieve high security. Initially, the Arnold cat map is used to scramble pixel positions, ensuring thorough mixing and obscuring the image structure (confusion). Following this, the image pixel values are altered using the new chaotic map, which integrates sine and tent maps to provide a complex diffusion process. The enhanced security of the new chaotic map contributes to a robust encryption method that effectively mitigates various cryptographic attacks. The proposed technique is evaluated for its effectiveness and robustness, demonstrating significant improvements in image encryption. Experimental results demonstrate the robustness and efficiency of the proposed scheme. The encrypted images exhibit high entropy values, close to the ideal value of 8, ensuring strong randomness. Key sensitivity analysis confirms the system’s resistance to brute-force attacks, as minor changes in initial conditions produce significantly different cipher images. The NPCR (Number of Pixel Change Rate) and UACI (Unified Average Changing Intensity) metrics further confirm that the scheme can withstand differential attacks, with values exceeding 99.98% and 33.34%, respectively. This encryption technique is ideal for secure multimedia communication, medical image protection, and digital rights management in scenarios with limited processing power and storage capacity. Its balance between security and performance positions it as a promising solution for modern encryption challenges in resource-limited environments.