| The purpose of this research was to explore the cybersecurity risk to which adolescents and non-technical adults are exposed, and to assess available methods by which they might be trained to be more aware of cybersecurity issues and enabled to better defend themselves against attack. Based on current research, most users are aware of terms in the cybersecurity vocabulary but cannot define them accurately, nor do they know how to do much more than install antivirus programs. The skills end users need to acquire to better protect themselves are reviewed. A cloud-based, interactive, adaptive training program is proposed. The importance of this research is that it offers a way to dramatically increase the cybersecurity awareness and skills of adolescent and non-technical adults. The conclusions are (1) that the present state of hardware and software development has increased, not decreased, the risk of cybersecurity attacks, and (2) training of adolescents and non-technical adults will greatly mitigate, but not eliminate, vulnerability to attacks. |
