Modeling anti-malware use intention of university students in a developing country using the theory of planned behavior

Abstract

Purpose

This paper aims to investigate the impact of perceived price level and information security awareness on computer users’ attitude. Moreover, this study aims to investigate the effect of attitude, subjective norms and perceived behavioral control (PBC) on intention to use anti-malware software.

Design/methodology/approach

Data were collected using a structured questionnaire from 225 students of five public universities in Malaysia. Purposive sampling technique was used in this study. AMOS 24 was used to test the research framework using a two-step approach.

Findings

Findings give support to some of the hypotheses developed with R2 values of 0.521 for attitude and 0.740 for intention. Perceived price level had a negative effect on attitude while information security awareness had a positive effect on attitude and intention. Attitude, subjective norms and PBC were all positively related to intention, but perceived price level did not affect intention. This suggests that benefits of using anti-malware are more than its price value. Therefore, the price has no direct effect on intention to use.

Research limitations/implications

University computer networks are as open and inviting as their campuses. Therefore, this research can be helpful to the universities to safeguard their networks and encourage the students to use anti-malware. However, using anti-malware software will enable an individual to identify and prioritize security risks, quickly detect and mitigate security breaches, improve the understanding of security gaps and safeguard the sensitive data by minimizing the risks related to malware.

Originality/value

This study ventured to model the information security behavior of anti-malware usage by individual users by using the theory of planned behavior with the addition of two new variables, perceived price level and information security awareness to explain the behavior better.

Citation

Vafaei-Zadeh, A., Thurasamy, R. and Hanifah, H. (2019), "Modeling anti-malware use intention of university students in a developing country using the theory of planned behavior", Kybernetes, Vol. 48 No. 8, pp. 1565-1585. https://doi.org/10.1108/K-05-2018-0226