Impact of security awareness programs on end-user security behavior: A quantitative study of federal workers

The increasing dependence on technology presented more vulnerability to security breaches of information and the need to assess security awareness levels in federal organizations, as well as other organizations. Increased headlines of security breaches of federal employees' security actions prompted this study. The research study reviewed the security awareness within federal law enforcement agencies to determine the relationship of the security program to end-users' security behavior while answering: Were there any factors that played a part in how security awareness levels were assessed? (a) Did participation in internal security awareness training affect the level of security awareness of end-users? (b) Did external factors affect security awareness levels of endusers? (c) Did inherent factors affect security awareness levels of end-users? Through close-ended surveys, the federal community responded positively to each sections of questions to reveal the link between internal, external, and inherent factors to security behavior. In order to implement a more successful security awareness program in the future, external, internal, and inherent factors should be considered based on the established relationship between factors and security behavior, to promote a stronger security environment.