Factors Related to Cyber Security Behavior

Abstract

Theoretical and empirical insight notes that cyber security awareness is a topic of particular interest in cyber security. Humans are the central figures in cyber security and the way to reduce risk in cyberspace is to make people more security aware. While there have been numerous studies about various aspects of cyber security awareness, they are both inconsistent and environment-dependent. The main aim of our research is to analyze cyber security awareness in depth, and to try to discover how various factors such as socio-demographics, cyber security perceptions, previous cyber security breaches, IT usage, and knowledge may individually or together impact on cyber security behavior. To prove that we conducted our research on students, as they are the most technologically active part of the society. We discovered that knowledge proved to be the dominant factor for cyber security awareness, and although students are digital natives, they do not feel safe in the cyber environment; they do not behave securely and do not have adequate knowledge to protect themselves in cyberspace.