A novel algorithm for secure and reliable coordinator election in distributed networks

In distributed networks, electing an entity to act as a coordinator is a crucial agreement problem. This coordinator election process is vulnerable to security attacks because of the unreliable communication channel used for message passing in the election algorithms. For example, electing a coordinator is a challenge in many blockchain consensus algorithms. There is a need to ensure the safety and liveness of coordinator election algorithms. In this work, the security challenges in the election algorithm are identified and a novel method for coordinator election is designed. A Secure and Reliable Coordinator Election Algorithm (SRCEA) is proposed for reliable and secure coordinator election in distributed networks. The performance of SRCEA is analyzed and compared with the existing secure coordinator election algorithms. SRCEA elects a coordinator node securely with O(n) communication cost and storage space cost where n is the number of member nodes in the system. The communication cost of SRCEA is comparatively 97% less. The computation cost of SRCEA is also considerably less as compared to the existing algorithms.