Significance of Information Security Awareness in the Higher Education Sector

Abstract

Information security awareness is an important contributing factor for a successful information security plan and should be properly assessed in order to suggest improvements. This explorative study directly investigated and assessed the employee information security awareness levels within a South Australian Higher Education Institution for the purpose of providing much needed insight into the extent of information awareness levels in Australian organizations. Using an online questionnaire, the study revealed that the organization's employee information security awareness were generally lacking. The study also identified several problem areas which had plenty of room for improvements, thus paving the way for further research into how information security awareness levels can be improved. It is recommended that the organization include information security awareness as part of its overall risk assessment strategies in order to mitigate such risks. Finally, the adoption of programs which will enhance security awareness should also be explored in order to foster an organizational culture of security compliance, thereby minimizing any information security risks.

Volunteer hive computing and virtualization in Botswana's web based edification techniques

“…Thus the idea to use these questions in section A is to establish the awareness of volunteer computing. It is assumed that a respondent with basic understanding of volunteer computing will be able to attempt the questionnaire with little difficulty [8]. For the second part, the questionnaire aims to evaluate the respondents' behaviour independently of their vocabulary knowledge about volunteer computing and hence scenario-type questions were used.…”

“…The questionnaire was designed using the approach used in a paper titled "A vocabulary test to assess information security awareness" [8].…”

“…Campaigns to elucidate that Volunteer Hive Computing with Virtualization Model could offer wide variety of solutions which can address the issues that might arise due to shortage in computing power, processing cycles and storage space [2,8].…”

A Novel Model for Monitoring Security Policy Compliance

“…As such, many end users are still unaware of the importance of information security and the relevant organizational requirements. Chan and Mubarak [6] found that more than fifty per cent of the employees in their study were unaware of the existence of the information security policy in their organizations.…”

“…The results of the study suggested that increased awareness and training programmes have an impact on users' compliance with information security policy. Chan and Mubarak [6] concluded that a "lack of awareness and knowledge of policies may have allowed for staff to violate such policies".…”