The Impact of Age, Gender, and Educational level on the Cybersecurity Behaviors of Tertiary Institution Students: An Empirical investigation on Malaysian Universities

Abstract

A lot of cybersecurity breaches occur due to human errors. Tertiary institutions need to enhance students’ cybersecurity awareness and capabilities, hence promoting safe cybersecurity behaviors. Socio-psychological factors affects students’ cybersecurity behaviors. We explore to what extent age, gender and educational level, plays a role in mediating the factors affecting tertiary institution students’ cybersecurity behaviors. A cross-sectional survey was conducted among 340 students and Structural Equation Modelling was employed for evaluating impacts. Data analysis was conducted via SPSS (V.25). Results show that students cybersecurity behaviors varies based on Age for factors such as: Perceived Severity, Peer Behavior, Familiarity with Cyber Threats, Response Efficacy and Perceived Vulnerability. Gender effects existed in Security Self Efficacy, Computer Skills, Cybersecurity Behaviors, Perceived Severity, and little effects in Prior Experiences with Computer Security Practices. Educational level differences existed in Cues to Action and Familiarity with Cyber-Threats. Age, gender and educational level are important factors in mediating students’ cybersecurity behaviors. Practically, our findings can instigate the need for specific/focused cybersecurity training and interventions for students in the tertiary institutions. It can also help cybersecurity training units in the tertiary institutions to target very vital components of cybersecurity behavior model, hence improving the cybersecurity behaviors of the students.