الوعي بثقافة الهندسة الاجتماعية لدى طلبة كليات التعليم التقني بسلطنة عمان : دراسة حالة لطلبة الكلية التقنية بالمصنعة

Abstract EN

The main objective of this study was to investigate the awareness of Social Engineering among Al Musanna College of Technology students in the Sultanate of Oman by identifying the students' awareness of the concepts of phishing, email fraud, and other social engineering techniques that use to obtain sensitive or confidential information.

It also aimed to detect the nature of behaviors and practices when using social media, and the methods to avoid social engineering attacks.

To achieve the objectives of the study, the current study followed the quantitative approach, represented in the questionnaire as a data collection tool.

The study population consist of all students (2908) in Al Musanna College of Technology in three fields: engineering, business and information technology, excluding foundation year students.

A total of 663 questionnaires were valid, the response rate to the survey was %19.

The importance of this study that there are relatively few studies that highlight the unique of critical importance of teaching students how to avoid social engineering attacks, by introducing social engineering in such courses and provide students and faculty members with several workshops in order to educate them how to deal with such attacks.

It also will create a new knowledge about level of students' awareness and attitudes about social engineering.

The study found that the level of students' knowledge of the concepts and methods of social engineering is low.The results indicated that %55 of the students did not hear of this term definitively, while %45 knew the term with different levels of interest.

The study also showed that majority of students were aware of some regulatory and technical practices that followed in order to avoid social engineering attacks, but these percentages do not exceed half in some cases, meaning that at least %40 have not demonstrate safe practices when using e-mail and/ or social media.

The study came out with a set of recommendations, including raising the awareness of the university community about the concept of social engineering and its methods, educating students on the culture of cybersecurity and social engineering via courses, and activating the role of information specialist in social responsibility and digital awareness.