Evaluating cybersecurity attitudes and behaviors in Portuguese healthcare institutions

• Autor(a) principal: Nunes, Paulo
• Data de Publicação: 2021
• Outros Autores: Antunes, Mário, Silva, Carina
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/10400.21/12951
• topic: Cybersecurity; Cyber-awareness; Behaviour; Attitude; Cyber-hygiene; Health information system; Portugal; UIDB/00006/2020

The growing digitization of healthcare institutions and its increasing dependence on Internet infrastructure have boosted concerns related to data privacy and confidentiality. These institutions have been challenged with specific issues, namely the sensitivity of data, the specificity of networked equipment, the heterogeneity of healthcare professionals (nurses, doctors, administrative staff, and others), and the IT skills they have. In this paper, we present the results obtained with a study made with healthcare professionals on evaluating their awareness level with information security, namely by assessing their attitudes and behaviors in cybersecurity. The methodology consisted in translating, adjusting, and applying two previously validated and already published Likert-type response scales, in a healthcare institution in Portugal, namely “Centro Hospitalar Barreiro Montijo” (CHBM). The scales used were cybersecurity risky behavior (RScB) and cybersecurity and cybercrime in business attitudes (ATC-IB). Although there were no significant statistical differences between the sociodemographic factors and the scores obtained on both scales, the results showed a relationship between acquired behaviors and the attitudes of involvement with work and organizational commitment, establishing a bridge for the quantification in awareness.