In this paper we consider a leader election problem in ad-hoc single hop radio sensor network with an adversary. The aim of
the adversary is to be chosen as a leader. In many scenarios it can be a staring point for performing other attacks and taking
control over the whole network.
In our paper we show that in typical and well-known algorithms it is not possible to avoid this threat, i.e. the adversary
can always use such strategy, that the node under its control becomes a leader with high probability. This attack is efficient
even if the adversary controls very small number of nodes. Moreover, we show that it is not even possible in practice to detect
such malicious behaviour.
Our second contribution is a new leader election algorithm that provides, to some extent, immunity against this types of attack.
We consider several realistic network models and we design appropriate methods for each of them. We also show that in some
scenarios it is not possible to prevent the adversary from becoming the leader.
This paper was supported by funds for science in years 2008-2011 from Polish Ministry of Science and Higher Education, grant
No. N N206 257335 and Collaborative Project FRONTS within 7th Framework Programme of Comission of European Communities Grant
No. 215270.