Abstract:

The growing demand for access to Internet resources, as well as the appropriation of routines attached to an extensive and growing use of technology in the daily lives of individuals has triggered a growing interest in studies on the security and privacy of individuals when they are connected to the internet. The purpose of this document is to show the perception of university students towards the possible vulnerabilities that undermine their digital security. This is a descriptive quantitative cross-sectional study by applying a survey with 10 items evaluated through a Likert scale with five weights ranging from Strongly disagree to Strongly agree. The sample was not probabilistic for convenience, consisting of 474 university students from two regions of the state of Veracruz in Mexico. 274 young people from the Veracruzana University located in the downtown area of the state and 200 young people from the Superior Technological Institute of San Andrés located in the south of the Veracruz state. It was analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics through the SPSS Statistical Analysis Software to identify significant differences in perceptions by gender, semester they study, as well as the university in which young people study. The results indicate that there is similarity in the perception of university men and women regarding the possible vulnerabilities when surfing the internet. On the other hand, there is no dependence on the semester that young university students are taking regarding the possible vulnerabilities when surfing the internet. In addition, there is no difference in terms of the university in which young people study with respect to possible vulnerabilities when surfing the internet.

Keywords:

Digital Security, Digital Privacy, Digital Citizenship, Students, University, Mexico.