Measuring Individuals Cybersecurity Awareness Based on Demographic Features

Abstract

Cybersecurity awareness has a huge impact on individuals and an even bigger impact on firms, universities, and institutes to those individuals belong. Consequently, it is essential to explore and asses the factors affecting the awareness level of cybersecurity. More specifically this research study examines the impact of demographic features of individuals on cybersecurity awareness. The Studied literature’s limitations have been addressed and overcome in our research from the variability, and ambiguity aspects. A questionnaire was developed and responses were collected from 613 participants. Reliability and validity tests as well as correlations have been applied for the instruments and data employed in this study. Coefficients were calculated via multiple linear regression for the weights of each of the cybersecurity components. Data reliability test showed that Cronbach's Alpha value of 0.707 for the used data which is acceptable for research purposes. Results analysis showed r-value for each of the questions is greater than the r table which was 0.07992. Examining the proposed hypotheses showed that there is a difference as the null hypothesis is rejected for one of the demographic features being tested namely, gender. While there is no significant difference when it comes to the other two factors, education level, and age. Using the weight for each of the components, password security, technical behavior, and social influence could provide a solid base for decision-makers to focus on and implement the available resources for gender-specific developments to raise the cybersecurity awareness level.