A User Awareness Model for averting Computer Threats

Abstract

One of the major reasons why systems are susceptible to threats in many ways or the other is the lack of the know-how and a follow up system for the education rendered to users, who in most cases are the weakest point for any perpetrated system attacks. Security awareness should be viewed as a gyratory exercise, as the attackers of systems never cease to explore on better and easier ways to penetrate organisational systems. This paper presents a user awareness model based on a case study done in one of the corporate environments in Namibia. The proposed model is a product of the different key facets that are perceived to be detrimental to system security in any average organisational setup. One of the major contributions of the User Awareness Model (UAM) is a systematic and procedural assessment tool of the user practice towards computer systems security, which can be applied to any organisational environment with the flexible option to vary the combination of security needs variables.