In order to weaken the periodicity of encrypted cipher and improve security and dynamics of the algorithm, an image encryption algorithm based on multi-direction diffusion is proposed. The initial image is divided into two equal blocks, and two random sequences are obtained by introducing Logistic mapping. New arrays are formed by designing quantization mechanism, and they are recombined into two matrices. The pixel cross control strategy is established. Highly confusion of sub-blocks is achieved and the periodicity of scrambling is reduced. The four direction folding encryption method is designed in which each diffusion direction corresponds to a diffusion function for diffusing the pixels form four directions to weaken diffusion periodicity. Results show that proposed algorithm has higher encryption security, anti-attack resistance and privacy compared with the current chaotic encryption techniques, which can improve the ability to resist network attacks of image, and ensure the image information security.