PRAGMATIC APPROACH ON SOCIAL ENGINEERING AWARENESS EVALUATION IN NASARAWA STATE UNIVERSITY, KEFFI

Abstract

This study assessed the level of social engineering awareness within Nasarawa State University, Keffi (NSUK), using a pragmatic approach that combined survey responses and practical experiments. A total of 101 students and staff participated in the research, representing diverse age groups, genders, and educational backgrounds. Findings revealed that awareness of social engineering was generally low, with 63% of respondents reporting no prior knowledge of social engineering or its attack vectors. Phishing was identified as the most prevalent attack vector, experienced by 50% of respondents, followed by email spoofing (28%) and pretexting (9%). Alarmingly, 13% of respondents who had been victims were unable to identify the type of attack they had experienced. Additionally, 53% of participants lacked the technical skills to determine whether their personal computers had been compromised. The study further revealed that all respondents admitted to using public computers or networks to access personal information, significantly increasing the likelihood of successful social engineering attacks. The research concludes that NSUK faces a high level of vulnerability and recommends comprehensive awareness campaigns, technical literacy training, phishing mitigation strategies, and stronger security for shared computing resources.