A survey of cybersecurity awareness among undergraduate students at Yunnan University of Finance and Economics in China

Abstract

Telecommunications and cyber fraud are prevalent online risks that have caused trouble for college students. Undergraduate students are particularly vulnerable to fraud due to a lack of experience and cybersecurity awareness. It is essential for educators to provide cybersecurity-related training to raise the students’ level of cybersecurity awareness. The aim of this study was to see how Chinese undergraduate students learned about cybersecurity and examine a relationship between training and cybersecurity awareness. A questionnaire was administered to survey cybersecurity learning approaches and a degree of cybersecurity awareness of undergraduates at Yunnan University of Finance and Economics in China. Four aspects of cybersecurity awareness were assessed, namely, cybersecurity knowledge, privacy, password management and trust. A total of 384 undergraduate students participated in the survey. Spearman correlation analysis was used to test the research hypothesis. The study’s findings revealed that training had a significant relationship with cybersecurity awareness. Respondents who learned about cybersecurity via either formal or informal approaches showed higher level of cybersecurity awareness. The analysis further investigated relationships between cybersecurity awareness and types of learning methods, major, and gender. The analysis found that major had no significant relationship with cybersecurity awareness. Learning approaches and gender, however, showed statistically significant relationships with cybersecurity awareness.