An investigation of ai-driven cyber fraud and cybersecurity awareness among university students

ABSTRACT The aim of this study is to determine the cybersecurity awareness levels of university students and to analyze the differences according to various demographic characteristics. In the research, the Cybersecurity Scale (CS-S), developed by İbrahim Arpacı and Kadir Sevinç (2022), was used to examine students' attitudes toward cybersecurity. The population of the study consists of students at Hitit University, and a sample of 190 students from different faculties participated in the survey. The data were collected online via Google Forms. The findings of the study showed that the scale has adequate internal consistency and validity across all dimensions. The overall Cronbach's Alpha value of the scale was found to be 0.79. The effects of gender, faculty, computer usage level, daily internet usage time, and prior cybersecurity education on awareness were examined using various statistical analyses (t-test, ANOVA, correlation, and multiple regression). The results indicate that university students' general cybersecurity awareness is at a moderate level. Analysis by gender revealed that male students exhibited higher awareness, particularly in the "Control/Possession" and "Integrity" subdimensions, while no significant differences were found between males and females in the "Availability" and "Utility" subdimensions. Departmental analysis showed that students studying in engineering faculties had higher levels of awareness compared to students from other faculties. It was determined that as the level of computer usage increased, cybersecurity awareness also increased significantly. No significant relationship was found between daily internet usage time and cybersecurity awareness. Students who had received cybersecurity education or attended seminars had significantly higher awareness levels than those who had not. The fact that the majority of students (65.4%) had not previously received any cybersecurity training emphasizes the importance of educational programs to increase awareness.