Cyber Security Awareness: Social Media Usage and Cyber Security Behavior of College Students

The study aims to analyze the usage of social media and awareness of cybersecurity as well as cyber security behavior among college students. In recent years, social media has highly impacted on student’s lives. Social media platforms are easily available to students but they all were not aware about the security and safety measures i.e., Cyber Security. Students using social media accounts for entertainment and majorly sharing their live status. Cybercrime has become a bigger challenge. The national security is at the risk and so is the public safety and personal privacy. In order to eliminate the treats of cybercrime we need to educate the students, since the students are the larger group of people who uses social media these days. This paper studied the level of cyber security awareness among rural undergraduate and postgraduate students in Satara. Data was collected from 280 students. A structured questionnaire used for doing online surveys to analyze how the students uses the social media platforms and are they aware about the cybersecurity.  This survey was conducted in Satara city by focusing on Social media security threats, Cyber security behavior and usage of social media platforms. This survey examines the college students active on social media platforms and awareness about cybersecurity. The students' cyber security behavior was general, not secure and safe. In rural areas, students were finding opportunities with the help of social media platforms and they were not much aware about cyber security. They have just heard about cyber security, viruses, money theft, etc. but do not have knowledge about securing personal information, data. For this purpose, the colleges, Cyber security systems should take initiatives to aware the students and secure their lives.