Cybersecurity Awareness of University Students in Nigeria

Abstract

Today, the internet has become the backbone to empower and facilitate our daily activities, including educational, financial, and social activities. Nigeria is among the top list of countries that suffered economically from cybercriminals. Many researchers have turned their attention to identifying the cybersecurity awareness of students but limited to the North-eastern universities in Nigeria. University students are prime targets of cyberattacks as research shows frequent access to the internet compared to normal users. The main aim of this paper is to identify the current cybersecurity awareness on the following items (Cyberbully, Personal Information, Internet Banking, Internet Addiction, and Self-protection) of students at the North-eastern universities. The quantitative method was adopted for data collection through a questionnaire that was administered to randomly selected students. The designed questionnaire covers the above items, ), based on the holistic result analysis using OrignPro Software the majority of result shows the students have some basic knowledge of cybersecurity in an item like personal information, internet banking, while other items like cyberbully, self-protection and, internet addiction result show moderate awareness. Subsequently, based on the in-depth analysis performed with a control variable “Major Discipline” as specialization, surprisingly, it indicates that engineering, humanity, and law faculties tend to have more awareness of cybersecurity. This survey provides a roadmap toward the design of effective cybersecurity awareness programs and implementation guidelines.