Cybersecurity best practices among Polish students

The major purpose of this article is to analyze state of knowledge within the cybersecurity area accompanied with identification of behavior patterns represented by students (seen as future users and managers of modern technology). The research was divided into: source of knowledge used as so called cybersecurity best practices and password protection aspects. The research was performed using the CAWI method in February 2017. The process included following steps: prepared questionnaire was verified and validated by cybersecurity experts, after expert assessment questionnaire was placed at servers of Faculty of Management (University of Warsaw). The following structure was applied within the article: short introduction and literature review of the researched subject, definition of research conditions and thesis, and used research method, analysis and discussion of research fmdings, and the last part was dedicated to conclusions related to the research and cybersecurity awareness represented by respondents. Author used 3 working thesis to support the research that fully were proved by collected answers. The research showed that Internet and Friends and Colleagues are the leading sources of knowledge about cybersecurity within the examined group. Based on that author got an evidence that those practices are faulty and lead to wrong behavior patterns both in internet and password protection. It also showed that people indicate lacking of reliable sources of information about cybersecurity where professional training was treated marginally comparing to the leading sources of information. Received results indicate that either employer or university was not interested in promoting good behavior patterns nor the training was the target for respondents. And it can be a reason that users of modern technology put more trust in Internet than in qualified sources of knowledge. (C) 2018 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.