Enhancing Digital Transformation in Higher Education: A Study on Cybersecurity Awareness Among University Students in Jordan with a Case Study at Middle East University

As highly innovative technologies and unprecedented large data transfers are in existence, the security aspect becomes most critical. This work evaluates the students’ level of cybersecurity knowledge at Middle East University in Jordan suggesting the need to protect data for oneself and the society. The study aims at assessing the level of consciousness among the students concerning the menace of cyber-security and also to test the problem solving skills and sensations of the students in complicates systems by employing survey method. Optimizing social engineering questionnaire for MEU was conducted on 352 students and included subtopics such as general information about malware, password usage, and social media. The means and standard deviations were used to offer a detailed description of students’ level of cybersecurity knowledge while the ANOVA provided a statistical comparison of the results by group. The goal of the study will be to determine the major gaps in the existing knowledge of cybersecurity in order to improve the awareness, training and educational programs. These gaps imply the need to build better cybersecurity courses and apply other measures to assist in enhancing knowledge for these extremes. This analysis is useful in understanding the issues concerning MEU’s digitalization policies and those of other academics as well as in the broader context. The findings of the study show that, in terms of existing cybersecurity knowledge among students, the level of awareness can be considered as adequately developed, however, troublingly weak when it comes to applying the knowledge in real life. The study also analyses the differences between male and female students in the selected university and stresses the need to enhance theoretical knowledge applied to practice interventions to enhance the level of cybersecurity awareness and protection. Suggestions are given to improvise the course content and eradicate the mentioned disadvantageous, the overall goal is to raise the level of cybersecurity consciousness and protection among Jordanian students.