Abstract

In the age of technology, the Internet has spread widely and used for multiple purposes by users of all ages, especially children who start using it frequently to play in their spare time. With the use of the Internet, children must have a sufficient security awareness to avoid security risks found online. This study takes us through the journey of evaluating and enhancing the level of the Internet security awareness among a group of Saudi children aged 3-12 years. The developed evaluation survey shows that there is some awareness among the Saudi Children; however, they still need more concrete ways of ensuring secure practices as they showed a poor knowledge of proper Internet security practices in areas such as interacting with anonymous advertisements as well as understanding some of the Internet Security symbols. The study also presents a suggested Awareness Enhancement solution to raise the security awareness among children. The solution’s design takes into consideration the Piaget’s theory of children’s cognitive development, which states that children in different age groups have different perceptual and learning abilities. The test of the suggested solution shows a significant increase in the sample’s Internet security level. The work of this study emphasizes on the importance of targeting the Saudi children with interactive training sessions to raise their Internet security awareness level.

Library of Congress Subject Headings

Internet --Security measures--Public opinion; Children--Saudi Arabia--Attitudes; Internet--Security measures--Study and teaching (Elementary)

Publication Date

8-13-2015

Document Type

Thesis

Student Type

Graduate

Degree Name

Computing Security (MS)

Advisor

Sumita Mishra

Advisor/Committee Member

Yin Pan

Advisor/Committee Member

Khadeeja M.Amin Khoja

Comments

Physical copy available from RIT's Wallace Library at TK5105.59 .A56 2015

Campus

RIT – Main Campus

Plan Codes

COMPSEC-MS

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