Department of Psychology-M.S. CyberPsychology Program, Norfolk State University, Norfolk, Virginia, USA.
Cyberpsychol Behav Soc Netw. 2021 Sep;24(9):605-611. doi: 10.1089/cyber.2021.0043.
There is interest in better understanding people's cybersecurity (CS)-related attitudes and behaviors, which are ultimately impacted by their perceived vulnerability to CS risks. There is a relationship between how risk is perceived and how someone acts, with protection motivation theory (PMT) providing a particularly salient framework for explaining this connection. Exploration of how one perceives his or her own vulnerability to CS victimization is essential to understanding this interaction, and risk mitigation of threats relies heavily on the human despite increased reliance on digital technologies such as machine learning that can be used proactively and in real time yet are still impacted by human behavior. This study sought to examine the information security attitudes and behaviors that contribute to perceived CS vulnerability. A convenience sample of 612 college students sampled from two public universities in the United States completed a brief demographic survey and the Online Security Behavior and Beliefs Questionnaire. The instrument demonstrated good internal reliability with an index of perceived vulnerability significantly and positively correlating with multiple subscales. Linear regression indicated subscales that tended to focus more on one's inner belief that he or she is capable and competent enough to understand the nature of CS risks was predictive of perceived vulnerability, potentially resulting from a social desirability response bias which yielded an overly favorable self-report. PMT suggests that knowledge is an essential factor influencing decision making and results of this study suggest that perceived vulnerability may depend upon the appraisal of experience more so than one's actual knowledge or competence.
人们对更好地了解与网络安全相关的态度和行为很感兴趣，因为这些态度和行为最终会受到他们对网络安全风险感知的影响。人们对风险的感知和行为之间存在着联系，保护动机理论（PMT）为解释这种联系提供了一个特别有意义的框架。探索人们如何感知自己对网络安全受侵害的脆弱性，对于理解这种相互作用至关重要，尽管人们越来越依赖于机器学习等数字技术，这些技术可以被主动且实时地使用，但它们仍然受到人类行为的影响，因此减轻威胁的重点仍然在人类身上。本研究旨在探讨导致感知网络安全脆弱性的信息安全态度和行为。本研究从美国的两所公立大学中抽取了 612 名大学生作为方便样本，他们完成了一份简短的人口统计调查和在线安全行为和信仰问卷。该工具具有良好的内部可靠性，感知脆弱性指数与多个分量表显著正相关。线性回归表明，更倾向于关注个人内在信念的分量表，即个人认为自己有足够的能力和能力来理解网络安全风险的性质，这是感知脆弱性的预测因素，这可能是由于社会期望反应偏差导致的过度有利的自我报告。PMT 表明，知识是影响决策的一个重要因素，本研究的结果表明，感知脆弱性可能取决于对经验的评估，而不是个人的实际知识或能力。
