Information Security Awareness in Educational Institution: An Analysis of Students' Individual Factors

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to study information security awareness (ISA) among university students and further analyze how different individual factors impact it. Through descriptive survey approach, a questionnaire consisting of 30 items was circulated in our university, resulting in 614 usable responses. Here the ISA is considered as a combination of knowledge and behavior. Factors such as age, gender, level of education, field of study, nationality, area of living, working experience and ISA training are considered as individual factors. Perceived ISA level among the students is also examined. For the overall study, arithmetic mean and standard deviation are used. For analyzing the effect of different individual factors, Pearson's coefficient of correlation is computed. Gender, living place and information security related training have statistically significant correlation with attained ISA level, whereas, factors such as age, nationality, discipline and level of education have statistically insignificant correlation with attained ISA level. Furthermore, gender and training have statistical significant correlation with the perceived ISA as well as the dimensions of ISA, that is, knowledge and behavior. Factors such as age and experience have significant correlation with perceived ISA, whereas, living area correlates with knowledge only.