Investigating Cybersecurity Awareness in SME Organisations

Abstract

Cyberattack incidents against small to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) increase nowadays, thus cybersecurity awareness is becoming an important issue to enhance the security of the SME organisations. However, despite the importance of cybersecurity awareness in many organisations including SMEs, such awareness is not yet fully absorbed as day-to-day practice in organisations.In this study, we have investigated cybersecurity awareness in small to medium-sized organisations (SMEs) in Norway. The purpose of this study is to provide knowledge, empirical data and relevant literature about cybersecurity awareness for SMEs that operate with security protocols and policies among their employees. This study tries to answer the following research questions: First, what does cybersecurity situational awareness mean to an employee in a small to medium-sized organisation (SMEs)? Second, what types of behaviours do the SMEs employees perceive as factors that cause cyber incidents in SMEs?