Cyber security awareness among students and faculty members in a Sudanese college

Abstract

In the last few years, cyber security has been an essential prerequisite for almost every organization to handle the massive number of emerging cyber attacks worldwide. A critical factor in reducing the possibility of being exploited is cyber security awareness. Not only having the adequate knowledge but how to utilize this knowledge to prevent cyber attacks. In this paper we conducted a survey that focuses on three vital security parameters, which are trust, passwords and defensive attitude respectively. The survey mainly aimed at assessing cyber security knowledge of 200 students and 100 faculty members in a Sudanese college and how secure these participants think they are according to their current cyber behaviour. 56% of the participants are males and 44% are females. The results revealed that all participants were having fairly-low level of security awareness and their defensive attitude is considerably weak and doesn’t protect them either individually or at institutional-level. Nevertheless, faculty member showed better cyber security knowledge and skills by 8% higher than students. This study can be used to develop training approaches that bridge the security gaps depicted by the respondents of the survey questions manipulated in this study.