Towards Human-Centric Endpoint Security

In a survey of six widely used end-to-end encrypted messaging applications, we consider the post-compromise recovery process from the perspective of what security audit functions, if any, are in place to detect and recover from attacks. Our investigation reveals audit functions vary in the extent to which they rely on the end user. We argue developers should minimize dependence on users and view them as a residual, not primary, risk mitigation strategy. To provide robust communications security, E2EE applications need to avoid protocol designs that dump too much responsibility on naive users and instead make system components play an appropriate role.