Work Experience as a Factor in Cyber-Security Risk Awareness: A Survey Study with University Students

Abstract

The emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020 has transformed how individuals work and learn and how they can apply cyber-security requirements in their, mostly remote, environments. This transformation also affected the university student population; some needed to adjust to new remote work settings, and all needed to adjust to the new remote study environment. In this online research study, we surveyed a large number of university students (n = 798) to understand their expectations in terms of support and help for this new remote work and study environment. We also asked students to report on their practices regarding remote location and Wi-Fi security settings, smart home device usage, BYOD (bring your own device) and personal device usage and social engineering threats, which can all lead to compromised security. A key aspect of our work is a comparison between the practices of students having work experience with the practices of students having no such additional experience. We identified that both the expectations and the level of cyber-security awareness differ significantly between the two student populations and that cyber-security awareness is increased by work experience. Work experience students are more aware of the cyber-security risks associated with a remote environment, and a higher portion of them know the dedicated employee whom they can contact in the event of incidents. We present the organizational security practices through the lens of employees with initial work experience, contributing to a topic that has so far received only limited attention from researchers. We provide recommendations for remote study settings and also for remote work environments, especially where the existing research literature survey results differ from the findings of our survey.