Self-Confidence Trumps Knowledge

Sawaya, Yukiko; Sharif, Muhammad; Christin, Nicolas; Kubota, Ayumu; Nakarai, Akihiro; Yamada, Akira

doi:10.1145/3025453.3025926

Cited by 71 publications

(19 citation statements)

References 29 publications

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“…Language is a part of the culture. Previous cross-cultural studies (Halevi et al , 2016; Sawaya et al , 2017) have found the difference in security behaviour. This study also found the influence of mother tongue and, in turn, culture on cybersecurity behaviours and practices.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 77%

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Cybersecurity behaviour of smartphone users in India: an empirical analysis

Shah

Agarwal

2020

ICS

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Purpose For a good number of Indians, their smartphone is their first digital computing device. They have less experience in dealing with the Internet-enabled device and hence less experience in handling security threats like malware as compared to users of other countries who have gone through the learning curve of handling such security threats using other Internet-enabled devices such as laptop and desktop. Because of this, the inexperienced Indian smartphone user may be vulnerable to Internet-related security breaches, as compared to the citizens of developed economies. Hence, it is essential to understand the attitude, behaviour and security practices of smartphone users in India. Limited research is available about the security behaviour of smartphone users in India as the majority of research in this domain is done outside India. Design/methodology/approach In this empirical study, the researchers identified 28 cybersecurity behaviours and practices through a survey of relevant literature. An online survey of identified cybersecurity behaviours and practices was administered to 300 smartphone users. Frequency analysis of the respondent data was done to understand the adoption of recommended cybersecurity behaviours and practices. Pearson’s chi-square with 5% level of significance has been used to test the hypotheses. Post hoc analysis with Bonferroni correction was conducted for statistically significant associations. Findings Overall, the respondents did not exhibit good cybersecurity behaviour. Respondents have adopted some of the most popular security features of the smartphone such as the use of screen lock. However, respondents have not adopted or are not aware of the technical security controls such as encryption and remote wipe. Statistically significant differences were found between the cybersecurity behaviour and practices and independent variables such as gender, age, mobile operating system (OS) and mother tongue. Respondents reported high level of motivation to protect their device and data, whereas they reported moderate level of threat awareness and the ability to protect to their device and data. Results of the comparative analysis with a similar study in China and the USA are also reported in this study. Research limitations/implications The main limitations of this study are as follows: the respondents' perceptions about their cybersecurity behaviours and practices were measured as opposed to their actual behaviours and practices and the generalizability of the study is limited because the sample size is small as compared to the total number of smartphone users in India. Practical implications The findings of this study may be useful for the design of effective cybersecurity prevention and intervention programs for general smartphone users of India. Originality/value This study provides an insight about cybersecurity behaviour of smartphone users in India. To the knowledge of the researchers, this is the first study to collect such quantitative data of smartphone users in India for a better understanding of the cybersecurity behaviours and practices. This study identified 28 cybersecurity behaviours and practices, which smartphone users should follow to improve cybersecurity.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 77%

“…Mother tongue-based hypothesis : Asian users are likely not to use phone locking mechanism and are more likely to exhibit insecure behaviour than users from other cultures (Sawaya et al , 2017). India was ruled out from earlier such studies because of the multiplicity of different local languages.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Cybersecurity behaviour of smartphone users in India: an empirical analysis

Shah

Agarwal

2020

ICS

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“…Furthermore, existing literature has conducted cross-national ISA research, which discovered that more secure cybersecurity behaviour was, to some extent, related to a country's higher GDP or better development, while the results were constantly changing. [42,43].…”

Section: Isa In Uencing Factorsmentioning

confidence: 99%

How education level influences internet security knowledge, behaviour, and attitude: a comparison among undergraduates, postgraduates and working graduates

Hong²,

et al. 2022

Int. J. Inf. Secur.

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During the pandemic, the prevailing online learning has brought tremendous benefits to the education field. However, it has also become a target for cybercriminals. Cybersecurity awareness (CSA) or Internet security awareness in the education sector turns out to be critical to mitigating cybersecurity risks. However, previous research indicated that using education level alone to judge CSA level received inconsistent results. This study postulated Social Educational Level (SEL) as a moderator with an extended Knowledge-Attitude-Behaviour model, used students’ year level as a proxy for the impact of education level, and used work exposure for the influence of social education level, to compare CSA among undergraduates, postgraduates and working graduates. The participants in the study were divided into six groups, namely year 1 university students, year 2-3university students, final-year students, postgraduate students, young working graduates, and experienced working graduates. The Human Aspects of Information Security Questionnaire was used to conduct a large-scale survey. The multivariate regression model analysis showed significant differences among the knowledge, attitude and behaviour dimensions across groups with different conditions of year-level and work exposure. However, it was found that SEL played a more significant role than an individual’s education level. The study suggested that a greater endeavour be committed to educating the public at large together with individuals, institutes, corporate and governments to improve the national CSA level.

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“…Several studies have been conducted to analyze how the cultural differences are correlated with user behavior or attitude toward security. Harbach et al [8] and Sawaya et al [9] conducted user-based surveys in multiple countries. To this end, these two research groups attempted to translate their survey questions into the participants' native languages.…”

Section: Cross-cultural User Surveys On Securitymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Harbach et al [8] aimed at investigating user attitude toward smartphone unlocking and they found that the level of protection of smartphone data was significantly different among various countries and Japanese participants tended to consider that their data on their smartphone is sensitive. Sawaya et al [9] recruited participants from seven countries, i.e., China, France, Japan, Korea, Russia, the United Arab Emirates, and the United States. They investigated security behavior and various other factors such as security knowledge and self-confidence in security, and concluded that Asian participants, especially Japanese, tended to behave less securely.…”

Section: Cross-cultural User Surveys On Securitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Comparative Analysis of Three Language Spheres: Are Linguistic and Cultural Differences Reflected in Password Selection Habits?

Mori

Watanabe

Zhou

et al. 2020

IEICE Trans. Inf. & Syst.

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This work aims to determine the propensity of password creation through the lens of language spheres. To this end, we consider four different countries, each with a different culture/language: China/Chinese, United Kingdom (UK) and India/English, and Japan/Japanese. We first employ a user study to verify whether language and culture are reflected in password creation. We found that users in India, Japan, and the UK prefer to create their passwords from base words, and the kinds of words they are incorporated into passwords vary between countries. We then test whether the findings obtained through the user study are reflected in a corpus of leaked passwords. We found that users in China and Japan prefer dates, while users in India, Japan, and the UK prefer names. We also found that cultural words (e.g., "sakura" in Japan and "football" in the UK) are frequently used to create passwords. Finally, we demonstrate that the knowledge on the linguistic background of targeted users can be exploited to increase the speed of the password guessing process.

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Self-Confidence Trumps Knowledge

Cited by 71 publications

References 29 publications

Cybersecurity behaviour of smartphone users in India: an empirical analysis

Cybersecurity behaviour of smartphone users in India: an empirical analysis

How education level influences internet security knowledge, behaviour, and attitude: a comparison among undergraduates, postgraduates and working graduates

Comparative Analysis of Three Language Spheres: Are Linguistic and Cultural Differences Reflected in Password Selection Habits?

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