The German Federal Office for Information Security (Bundesamt für Sicherheit in der Informationstechnik) offers advice and recommendations for private users on how to behave securely. Based on these recommendations we investigate the IT security knowledge and behavior of private users with a representative study of the German population (N = 1.219). Additionally, we analyze the role of socio-demographic factors (gender, age, education, political orientation) for security knowledge and behavior. Results show that German private users have only moderate IT security knowledge and behavior, with aspects as gender, age, education and political orientation partly having an influence. Men, higher educated and politically moderately oriented participants show higher security knowledge, whereas young people and those less knowledgeable about security behave less security-conscious. Additionally, security knowledge and behavior correlate moderately. Therefore, to increase private users’ IT security we suggest to increase education and training especially for users being young, politically right-wing or female.

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Keywords: IT security, security knowledge, online behavior, security behavior