Cybersecurity Awareness Level: The Case of Saudi Arabia University Students
Wejdan Aljohni, Nazar Elfadil, Mutsam A. Jarajreh, Mwahib Gasmelsied
Abstract
Cybersecurity plays an important role in reliance on digital equipment and programs to manage daily lives chores including the transmission and storage of personal information. Therefore, it is a global issue in our growing society, and it becomes increasingly important to measure and analyze the awareness of it. In this paper, a questionnaire has been designed to measure the current level of cybersecurity awareness (CSA) among Saudi university students. Cybersecurity students' awareness level questionnaire has been adapted from few other previous cybersecurity awareness campaigns. In this questionnaire, a total of 136 students have participated in the survey. The questionnaire was collected to measure the cybersecurity students’ awareness level through their knowledge, culture, and surrounding environment or through students’ behavior by thee affected factors. These are: gender, location, and study department of the students. The study findings reveal that the students’ awareness is in an average has no significant difference in cybersecurity awareness level between male and female students, but females show a bit more concern about cybersecurity. However, there is a clear and high awareness of students of computer and information technology departments compared to others. Moreover, urban students outperformed students in remote areas in awareness of cybersecurity. The survey results indicate that the study model has been effective in measuring students' awareness.