Self-Protection Practices Against Cyber Threats in Higher Learning Institutions

Abstract

The aim of this study was to assess the role of students’ self-protection practices against cyber threats in higher learning Institutions in Tanzania, A case study of Mwenge Catholic University. The study examines student’s self-protection practices against cyber threats on data confidentiality, data integrity and data availability and establish other factors that may contribute to information security vulnerabilities among higher learning institution students. This study was conducted in a quantitative approach throughout data collection, analysis, and interpretation. Descriptive cross-sectional research design was useful for collecting data and techniques used in data analysis. The population for the study was students from Mwenge Catholic University. Stratified random sampling technique was used to draw a sample size of 201 respondents from three stratum of student’s study levels (non-Degree students, Bachelor Degree students and Post Graduate students). The data collection instrument were structured questionnaires developed by the researcher. The reliability of the structured questionnaires was determined by using a pilot test method and the validity was done through professional judgement. The Statistical Package for Social Scientists (SPSS) version 20 tool was used to analyse descriptive and inferential data. The data is presented using tables. The study showed that self-protection practices against cyber threats on data confidentiality is still minimal. The findings demonstrated that majority of higher learning students are lacking basic cyber security knowledge and awareness on the use of strong passwords, two-factors authentication and biometrics verifications as measures of ensuring effective self-protection practices on data confidentiality. Moreover, the study revealed that there is also a minimal implementations of self-protection practices against cyber threats on data integrity. They do not apply the use of digital signatures, file permission controlling, user access controlling and awareness on phishing attacks as ways of ensuring effective self-protection practices against cyber threats on data integrity. However, the study revealed that there were sufficient efforts on self- viii protection practices measure against cyber threats on ensuring data availability, through the use of adequate communication bandwidth, data recovery/ backup software, antivirus, firewalls, spyware and updating of systems and application software as ways of ensuring data availability. The study recommends that students in higher learning institutions should be trained with fundamental knowledge and awareness of cyber security in order to avoid being victims of cybercrime. Also, Higher Learning Institutions should have included cyber-crime and cyber laws courses as a party of their curriculum since most of the students during this study show interest on learning more about cyber security