Shuhaili Talib

An Analysis of Information Security Awareness within Home and Work Environments

As technology such as the Internet, computers and mobile devices become ubiquitous throughout society, the need to ensure our information remains secure is imperative. Unfortunately, it has long been understood that good security cannot be achieved through technical means alone and a solid understanding of the issues and how to protect yourself is required from users. Whilst many initiatives, programs and strategies have been proposed to improve the level of information security awareness, most have been directed at organizations, with a few national programs focused upon home users. Given peoples use of technology is primarily focused upon those two areas: the workplace and home, this paper seeks to understand the knowledge and practice relationship between these environments. Through the survey that was developed, it was identified that the majority of the learning about information security occurred in the workplace, where clear motivations, such as legislation and regulation, existed. It was also found that user’s were more than willing to engage with such awareness raising initiatives. From a comparison of practice between work and home environments, it was found that this knowledge and practice obtained at the workplace was transferred to the home environment. Given this positive transferability of knowledge and the willingness to learn about how to remain secure, an opportunity exists to move away from specific organizational awareness programs and to move towards awareness raising strategies that, whilst deployed in the organization, will develop an all-round individual security culture for users independent of the environment within which they are operating.

Social networks privacy policy awareness among undergraduate students: The case of Twitter

People nowadays freely give out their personal information on social media without knowing the implications of such actions. The proliferation of social networking sites creates the illusion of fun that made people to overlook the downsides of using these media. This paper examines the privacy awareness and general concerns of undergraduate students who form the bulk of users of these media. An evaluation of students has been carried out to assess their level of concern for privacy and how conscientious they are regarding privacy policies. The work also examines whether based on the awareness, users are more careful or generally carefree. Furthermore, the research also sought to evaluate whether the privacy policies as currently presented is adequate. Another objective of the research is to examine better ways of engaging users if the composition and presentation of privacy policies are found to be contributive to the low level engagement.