An embodiment of the invention relates to a method of establishing a secure vehicle network including a plurality of nodes, each of the plurality of nodes including a memory storing a leader/follower field, the method includes establishing a communication path between a first node with a value corresponding to “leader” in the leader/follower field and a second node with a value corresponding to leader in the leader/follower field; and communicating between the first node and the second node over the communication path to establish the secure vehicle network by electing one of the first node and the second node to assign a value corresponding to “follower” to the leader/follower field.