CYBERSECURITY AWARENESS AMONG UNIVERSITY STUDENTS: A SOCIAL AND TECHNOLOGICAL STUDY

Abstract

Although it is true that university students are more and more involved in digital technologies, they are also highly vulnerable to cyber security threats because of the lack of consistency in awareness and protective behaviours. This article is a combination of the latest empirical studies on the Cybersecurity awareness of Higher Education students, with a focus on social and technological components, and the latest systematic reviews on the subject. The surveys in Indonesia, Turkey, India, Bangladesh, Bahrain and the United States showed that students have the ability to report these same threats (phishing and malware), but those reports don't necessarily result in protection. Moreover, there are a number of reports that despite the fact that many students are aware about threats in cyber space, only a small number of them are formally trained in cyber security. The findings also suggest that perceived behavioural control is a factor affecting students' cybersecurity intentions, and that social learning is an important factor in shaping students' cybersecurity behaviour outside of the classroom. The article identifies the disconnect between the technical education in cybersecurity, which is mainly associated with the computing fields and the education in cybersecurity to all children/young people as an interdisciplinary field. The results indicate that structured cybersecurity training in the curriculum and the use of interesting pedagogical approaches like gamification and simulation can be implemented in universities.