"Human Side of Cybersecurity: An Empirical Study"

A new study published in the International Journal of Business Information Systems examines the human side of cybersecurity. Cybersecurity is typically thought to be primarily about firewalls, antivirus software, spam filters, and Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) detection, but breaches of computer systems and networks are often caused by social engineering and human error instead of sophisticated malware. A team of researchers surveyed professionals, non-professionals, and students in the educational sector. They wanted to examine the relationship between computer security awareness and human behavior. Therefore, they focused on various personality traits to see if there were any links between them and a person's understanding of cybersecurity. While an organization or individual can implement policies and tools to protect against digital intrusion, it is nearly impossible to protect against social engineering without ongoing education of users who may fall victim to the persuasive skills of the confident cybercriminal. The team emphasizes that cybersecurity is a massive global challenge. They examined personality traits such as extroversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism, and openness as well as how they relate to an individual's perception and understanding of cybersecurity in order to determine where there are gaps in knowledge or where a particular personality type may be more susceptible to social engineering than another. This article continues to discuss the study on the relationship between awareness of computer security issues and human behavior. 

Inderscience reports "Human Side of Cybersecurity: An Empirical Study"