An investigation into users' information security awareness on social networks in south western Nigeria

Abstract

Background: Social networks (SNs) offer new and exciting opportunities for interaction among people, cutting across different stratum of the society and providing a ubiquitous mechanism that supports a wide variety of activities. They are at the same time being exploited by criminals to fraudulently obtain information from unsuspecting users. Unfortunately, the seamless communication and semblance of safety assumed by most users make them oblivious to the potential online dangers.

Objective: Using quantitative methods on selected social sites, this study empirically examined the information security awareness of SN users in south western Nigeria.

Method: A self-designed research instrument was administered for data collection while descriptive and inferential statistics were employed using chi-square, cross-tabulation and t-test for data analysis and result interpretation.

Result: Findings from the analysed data suggest that the risk perception vary among male and female SN users and that the general perception of risks regarding SN usage is also very low.

Conclusion: Adequate security awareness coupled with detailed legal measures are required to keep SNs secured. However, an individual is duly responsible for the habit of ignoring potential risks posed by the networks.