Impact of demographic factors on information security awareness : a study on professionals and students in Sweden

Over the past year, cyberattacks have increased and one of the reasons is a lack of security awareness in society. The Covid-19 pandemic has forced a drastic change in working conditions and the most prominent shift is that many people had to start working from home. From an information security perspective, this places great demands on the individual since they are not protected by their organization's security solutions in the same degree as in the physical office space. This is being exploited by cybercriminals and the issue of focusing on the human aspect of information security is becoming more essential. Education is used to increase information security awareness (ISA), which in turn leads to improved security behavior. Through education, organizations can therefore reduce the risk of being exposed to various cyberattacks. To develop training programs within information security, one should look for the underlying factors that have an impact on ISA. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to see if demographic factors have any impact on ISA among Swedish professionals and students. The study is based on a quantitative survey in which a total of 157 professionals and students participated. The study was conducted using The Human Aspects of Information Security Questionnaire (HAIS-Q), which is a validated questionnaire developed to measure ISA. The results of the study strengthen previous findings that knowledge about security policies is a crucial factor for a high ISA. In addition, age and level of education also show an impact on ISA. Information about underlying factors that impact ISA can be useful when designing training programs in information security for Swedish professionals and students