There is interest in better understanding people's cybersecurity (CS)-related attitudes and behaviors, which are ultimately impacted by their perceived vulnerability to CS risks. There is a relationship between how risk is perceived and how someone acts, with protection motivation theory (PMT) providing a particularly salient framework for explaining this connection. Exploration of how one perceives his or her own vulnerability to CS victimization is essential to understanding this interaction, and risk mitigation of threats relies heavily on the human despite increased reliance on digital technologies such as machine learning that can be used proactively and in real time yet are still impacted by human behavior. This study sought to examine the information security attitudes and behaviors that contribute to perceived CS vulnerability. A convenience sample of 612 college students sampled from two public universities in the United States completed a brief demographic survey and the Online Security Behavior and Beliefs Questionnaire. The instrument demonstrated good internal reliability with an index of perceived vulnerability significantly and positively correlating with multiple subscales. Linear regression indicated subscales that tended to focus more on one's inner belief that he or she is capable and competent enough to understand the nature of CS risks was predictive of perceived vulnerability, potentially resulting from a social desirability response bias which yielded an overly favorable self-report. PMT suggests that knowledge is an essential factor influencing decision making and results of this study suggest that perceived vulnerability may depend upon the appraisal of experience more so than one's actual knowledge or competence.

中文翻译：

---

感知漏洞作为网络安全风险行为风险增加的决定因素

有兴趣更好地了解人们的网络安全 (CS) 相关态度和行为，这些态度和行为最终会受到他们对 CS 风险的感知脆弱性的影响。风险的感知方式与某人的行为方式之间存在联系，保护动机理论 (PMT) 提供了一个特别突出的框架来解释这种联系。探索人们如何看待自己对 CS 受害的脆弱性对于理解这种交互至关重要，尽管越来越依赖数字技术，例如可以主动和实时使用的机器学习等数字技术，但威胁的风险缓解在很大程度上依赖于人类仍然受到人类行为的影响。本研究旨在检查导致感知 CS 漏洞的信息安全态度和行为。来自美国两所公立大学的 612 名大学生的便利样本完成了简短的人口调查和在线安全行为和信念问卷。该工具表现出良好的内部可靠性，感知脆弱性指数与多个分量表显着正相关。线性回归表明，倾向于更多地关注一个人的内在信念的分量表，即他或她有能力和能力来理解 CS 风险的本质，这可以预测感知到的脆弱性，这可能是由于社会期望反应偏差导致的过度有利的自我报告。