A Study on the User Perception and Awareness of Smartphone Security

Abstract

There is an unprecedented growth in demand for smartphone market in the last decade. This paved a way for an upward trend in usage of smartphones for personal and official communication, gaming and online shopping. The smartphones have become part and parcel of the modern day life style. The personalization features offered by vendors are making higher number of transactions to happen via smartphone. This essentially increases the concerns of security and there is a need to understand if the users are aware of security issues associated with smartphone usage. This study explores the reasons which make youngsters in the age group of 20 to 30 years to use smartphones, the security threats associated with the usage, the user’s perception on security and the level of security configurations by users on their mobile devices. The study also explores to find if there is a significant difference in the perception of security between youngsters who are Information Technology (IT) graduates and others from non-IT education background. The paper also attempts to find whether there is a difference in attitude towards managing security features in smart phones between genders.

Keywords: android security, security awareness, mobile phone usage, authentication, security configuration, mobile growth