Perceptions of Authentication Methods; Students and Employees with their job platforms and social media accounts : Study done in Sweden

Abstract: The massive use of data on the cyberspace have led to threats, such as data breach and security harm to individuals and to organization. Authentication methods are one of the mitigations of these threats and used to ensure that each of the individuals on the cyberspace is keeping their own or organizational data secured. For many years, the leading authentication method are passwords. The massive use of passwords has led to security flaws, such as individuals choosing comfort over security by using weak passwords. This study focuses on students and employees’ perception of authentication method in Sweden. The reason why is to see if the respondents are keeping their information secured enough and to what extent. This study is also analysing the respondents’ perception to who is one responsible for keeping their accounts secured enough. The study is following a quantitative form of study, with use of descriptive analysis. The result in the study indicates that passwords are still the most used authentication method in Sweden and that they perceive themselves and the provider as the ones responsible for using the most secured authentication method. The results also indicate an interest in implementing new ways to authenticate the users on the cyberspace.