Investigation of attitudes towards security behaviours

This study researched how a user’s knowledge affects their engagement in security behaviors. Security behaviors were operationalized into two categories: cyber hygiene and threat response behaviors. A sample of 194 San José State University students were recruited to participate in an observational study. Students completed a card sort, a semantic knowledge quiz, and a survey of their intention to perform security behaviors. A personality inventory was included to see if there would be any effects of personality on security behaviors. The results showed that many of the Big Five personality traits correlated with each other, which is consistent with other studies’ findings. Implications for future research are discussed to understand how knowledge, cyber hygiene behaviors, and threat response behaviors relate.