An Evaluation of the Information Security Awareness of University Students

Between January 2017 and March 2018, it is estimated that more than 1.9 billion personal and sensitive data records were compromised online. The average cost of a data breach in 2018 was reported to be in the region of US$3.62 million. These figures alone highlight the need for computer users to have a high level of information security awareness (ISA). This research was conducted to establish the ISA of students in a university. There were three aspects to this piece of research. The first was to review and analyse the security habits of students in terms of their own personal device and examine their password habits, including their student account and their own personal accounts. The second was to assess and evaluate each student on a variety of scenarios related to security, using a quiz which had a series of multiple choice questions. Respondents were required to select the option that would be deemed the most secure. Finally, the third aspect of this research was to establish if respondents who had participated in ISA training in the past, scored higher in either the quiz or the assessment of their own device and password habits when compared with users who had not participated in any form of training. This was to determine if ISA training had any bearing on these types of behaviours