Relationship Between Demographic Variables and Awareness on Cybersecurity Threats: An Empirical Analysis

Trillions of transactions are hit every day by the online mode of Banking. As the number of transactions is exponentially increasing, there is an increase in cybersecurity breaches resulting in a financial loss to the customers. For any risk to get materialized there is some vulnerability left open by the users which are triggered by the external threats by attackers. The first point of the target is always the human being in any attack, and how he responds to that always decides the level of losses after the incident. E-banking channels is a boon in today’s digital world when operated safely with due care, and following all norms of distancing from cybersecurity threats. Scheduled Urban Cooperative Banks in India has a major stake in the banking sector providing all E-banking services to its customers. Using primary data this paper attempts to assess the relationship of demographic variables on cybersecurity measures adopted by users of E-banking holding bank accounts in Scheduled Urban Cooperative Banks in India. The study reveals that users across all age groups, education levels, and gender are strongly susceptible to cybersecurity threats, and vulnerabilities. Bank’s effort to educate users through education emails and messages is not sufficient to improve the awareness of users about various types of threats, and security lapse. Banks are urged to go beyond mass mailing, and propagate personalized safe protocols to adhere during E-banking.