Employees' Information Security Awareness and Behavior: A Literature Review

Today's organizations are highly dependent on information management and processes. Information security is one of the top issues for researchers and practitioners. In literature, there is consent that employees are the weakest link in IS security. A variety of researchers discuss explanations for employees' security related awareness and behavior. This paper presents a theory-based literature review of the extant approaches used within employees' information security awareness and behavior research over the past decade. In total, 113 publications were identified and analyzed. The information security research community covers 54 different theories. Focusing on the four main behavioral theories, a state-of-the-art overview of employees' security awareness and behavior research over the past decade is given. From there, gaps in existing research are uncovered and implications and recommendations for future research are discussed. The literature review might also be useful for practitioners that need information about behavioral factors that are critical to the success of a organization's security awareness.