An Investigation Into the Awareness Level of Universıty Undergraduates on Cyber Incident Reporting and Respeonse in Kwara State

Abstract

Despite the increasing use of computers and internet resources for various purposes in different sectors of the economy, threats and attacks in cyberspace are on the increase. This is because internet attackers keep devising new techniques to evade being detected. The attack types include denial of service attacks, financial theft, espionage, subversion and identify theft. Many Nigerian cyber user communities are exposed to online threats. Despite efforts by government and IT security stakeholders to check the menace of cybercrime among Nigerians, cyber safety is still being considered to be very low. This may be as a result of lack of holistic measures for reporting and tackling the menace of crime in the country. Preliminary investigations revealed that some of the technological, administrative and legislative measures put in place in Nigeria to tackle the menace of cyber security have not given adequate attention to cyber incident reporting and response.  This study used a structured questionnaire to source for the opinions of some University undergraduates in Kwara State, Nigeria. The questionnaire was used to investigate the level of awareness of the selected students about cyber incident reporting and response. The target population have ages that fall in youthful bracket and they are considered to youths who use internet resources for various purposes. The responses of the respondents were analysed using descriptive statistics.  Statistical results revealed that larger number of students investigated is well aware of cyber incident reporting and response. Then, suggestions were made on how to achieve holistic strategy that can be used for promoting incident reporting and response among internet stakeholders in the country. It is argued that such measures will facilitate proactive means for tackling increasing cyber threats in the country.