Information security awareness: Preliminary studies amongst academicians at Universiti Utara Malaysia

Information security is vital to any organization.It holds the reputation as well as the image carried by the organization.Information security does not come in a package.It takes a culmination of people, process and technology.However, people are often overlooked as part of security components.Focus is more given towards implementing the latest technologies and products, such as firewalls, intrusion detection systems and the toughest encryption techniques.Having in mind that all these are able to provide strong protection, leaving people (employees of the organization) behind is not a good idea. There are many researchers who recognized the significance of information security awareness area.However, only few scientific studies have considered this area in depth.It is due to the fact that it falls outside the scope of traditional “hard” computer science.Taking this as a point of departure, this research focused on the human factor as one of the important security component.Current works related to information security awareness are presented together with selected models and frameworks.Survey and interviews was chosen as a method to obtain data and analysis was done from the compilation of the data gathered.Findings of the study revealed an interesting scenario of the perceptions and common practices of respondents in the case study.Conclusions are derived at the end of the research suggests the level of respondents’ awareness towards information security issues