Analysing Perceptions of Six Cyberattacks

Sammanfattning: The main topic of this degree project is the analysis of the general public’s perceptions on six different types of cyberattacks and their security measures taken against these cyberattacks. One of the goals of this degree project was to investigate if the perceptions of the cyberattacks were accurate and if lower educated people have different perceptions from higher educated people. While there may be plenty of research about cybersecurity and cyberattacks in general, there is little research in regards to the general public’s perceptions on different types of cyberattacks, especially regarding an international demographic. This degree project can help strengthen cybersecurity on different computer systems by analysing how people from an international demographic perceive these six different cyberattacks and how they counteract these cyberattacks. In order to collect data from international respondents, online surveys were used. Multiple websites were used to send the survey, with the main website being SurveySwap. The analysis contains comparisons between facts found in literature and perceptions of respondents and more. Two-sample t-tests and chi-squared tests were used to compare perceptions between lower educated people and higher educated people. According to the results, respondents in general seemed to have good understanding of some cyberattacks. However there were also some cyberattacks that the respondents in general did not have good understanding of. The results also indicated that there was probably no difference between perceptions from the lower educated respondents and higher educated respondents. The results of this degree project can be used in similar research to further investigate the perceptions among the general public of different cyberattacks.