A Human-Centric Cybersecurity Framework for Ensuring Cybersecurity Readiness in Universities

A Human-Centric Cybersecurity Framework for Ensuring Cybersecurity Readiness in Universities

Blessing Gavaza, Agripah Kandiero, Chipo Katsande
Copyright: © 2023 |Pages: 35
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-6684-9018-1.ch012
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Abstract

The escalating number of cyberattacks on universities worldwide resulted in universities losing valuable information assets leading to disruption of operations and loss of reputation. The research sought to explore a framework for human-factor vulnerabilities related to cybersecurity knowledge and skills, which enabled cybercriminals to manipulate human elements into inadvertently conveying access to critical information assets through social engineering attacks. Descriptive and inferential statistics were used to test the data, and Pearson's correlation statistics were used to measure the statistical relationships and association of variables. The results revealed that students and staff are vulnerable to social engineering attacks and their ability to protect themselves and other information assets is limited mainly due to poor cybersecurity knowledge and skills resulting from poor cybersecurity awareness and education.
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Background To The Study

In Zimbabwe, the Cyber-Security and Data Protection Act [Chapter 11:22] draft specifies in Clause 5 that the Postal and Telecommunications Regulatory Authority of Zimbabwe (POTRAZ) is designated as the Cyber Security Centre in Zimbabwe (Channon, 2019) and one of several functions of the Cyber Security Centre which this study is focusing on is providing guidelines to public and private sector interested parties on matters relating to awareness, training, enhancement, investigation, prosecution and combating cybercrime, and managing cyber security threats.

As a result, there is a demand for well-trained cybersecurity workers, and these specialists are developed in universities. Universities must invest in establishing cyber security expertise, which may be assessed by the number of initiatives, training and certification programs, and certified professionals of teams. This is also necessary to close the education-to-workforce gaps that are hindering efforts to fill cybersecurity jobs with qualified workers. These include gaps in competency, professional experience, and education speed-to-market (Milller & Molina-Ray, 2014).

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