Social media has become embedded in our everyday lives, personal activities, and the
workplace. Thus, educating users on emerging cybersecurity challenges for social media
has become imperative. In this project, a systematic literature review (SLR) was conducted
and a mix of approach analyses to derive a framework that identifies the activities involved
in adapting cybersecurity training for social media risks. I collected answers from 641
Kuwaiti employees in various sectors: education, healthcare, leadership and management,
arts, entertainment, the police, and military, and interviewed 25 people who serve as
policymakers, cybersecurity trainers, and those who have experienced cybersecurity
training before. The study found that a one-fits-all training approach is highly ineffective,
as people’s understanding and knowledge can vary greatly. Features such as gender,
age, educational level, job roles, and the trainees’ training preferences and perceptions
are essential considerations for developing a robust training system. Additionally, the
study found that job role and age constitute the main factors associated with social media
cybersecurity risks. The findings reveal that employees working in the business and
financial sectors are the riskiest group, as far as cybersecurity is concerned. Female
employees are more vulnerable to cyberattacks than male employees, and the youngest
employees are the most risk prone, employees with less than two years of experience,
and those who are 55 years old or more, need more cybersecurity training, due to their
lack of awareness on the subject. This work has led to formulate a risk equation that can
assist policymakers and training providers in defining countermeasures against risks and
prioritize the training for those who need it the most. The framework and its process were
validated through several strategies involving 38 case studies, surveys, and interviews.
The novel contribution of this research is the proposal of the framework, which is a high-level, holistic framework that can support and promote organizations in mitigating social
media risks.
Date of Award | 2023 |
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Original language | English |
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Awarding Institution | |
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Supervisor | Marco Palomino (Other Supervisor) & Matthew Craven (Other Supervisor) |
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- Cybersecurity
- risk management
- social media
- training
- education
Adaptive Cybersecurity Training Framework for Social Media Risks
Ben Salamah, F. (Author). 2023
Student thesis: PhD