An Exploratory Study of the Security Management Practices of Hispanic Students

The growing Internet and mobile technologies create opportunities for efficient communicationand coordination among individuals and institutions. However, these technologies also posesecurity challenges. Although users’ understanding and behavior towards security solutions havebeen recognized as critical to ensuring effective security solutions, few research articles haveexamined user security management practices. The literature lacks empirical research thatexamines users’ everyday behavior and practices to managing security. In an effort to bridge thegap in user security management practices, this paper presents an exploratory study of howHispanic college students manage the security of their computer systems. Specifically, weexamine how ethnicity, gender, and age influence users’ behavior towards updating theiroperating systems, non-operating system software and antivirus definitions. The results revealthat gender influences the frequency of updating operating systems, antivirus definitions and nonoperatingsystem software, whereas ethnicity and age influence only frequency of update ofoperating systems but not the frequency of update of non-operating system software andantivirus definitions.