An assessment of cybersecurity awareness level among Northeastern University students in Nigeria

Abstract

The world economy today has adopted the internet as a medium of transactions, this has made many organizations use the internet for their daily activities. With this, there is an urgent need to have knowledge in cybersecurity and also how to defend critical assets. The objective of this paper is to identify the level of cybersecurity awareness of students in Northeastern Nigeria. A quantitative approach was used for data collection and cyberbully, personal information, internet banking, internet addiction, and Self-protection were the items ask for cybersecurity awareness level identification. Descriptive analysis was performed for initial result findings using SPSS and OriginPro for graphical design. the preliminary result shows of the students have some basic knowledge of cybersecurity in an item like internet banking, while other items like cyberbully, self-protection and, internet addiction result show moderate awareness, the students' participation based on gender, males constitute 77.1% i.e. (N=340) and females constitute 22.9% i.e. (N=101). Future research would concentrate on designing awareness programs that would increase the level of their awareness especially the students in the Northeastern part of Nigeria.