# Exploring the Frontiers of Cybersecurity Behavior: A Systematic Review of Studies and Theories
## 5 Discussion
### Cybersecurity Research Themes and Key Factors  
This review analyzed the research themes of the collected articles by examining the dependent variables in each study. The findings showed that 'intention behavior' and 'cybersecurity behavior' were the most common purposes for conducting the studies. The studies that relied on the 'intention behavior' aimed to examine the users' behavior toward using different technologies and services from the perspective of security incidents. The studies that examined 'cybersecurity behavior' aimed to investigate the determinants affecting users' behavior toward cybersecurity. The findings also indicated that the extant literature has not adequately addressed the aspects of cybersecurity awareness and compliance behavior, thereby presenting opportunities for additional investigative endeavors. A recent systematic review corroborates this observation [85]. For the external factors, the results indicated that self-efficacy is the most influential factor affecting cybersecurity behavior, followed by perceived severity, response efficacy, and perceived vulnerability. Undoubtedly, these are the factors derived from the PMTtheory. These results suggest that further research needs to consider the role of social, technical, and psychological factors in understanding cybersecurity behavior. While analyzing the external factors, it has been noticed that the role of moderators is neglected in the extant literature. This issue was also discussed in a recent study conducted on employees' security behavior [86]. This review also analyzed the relationship between the cybersecurity research themes and the external factors, technologies/services, and active countries. In terms of 'intention behavior', it was found that self-efficacy, response efficacy, response cost, subjective norms, perceived usefulness, and perceived ease of use significantly impact intention behavior. The studies mainly focused on examining the intention behavior toward using several technologies/services, such as information systems [87; 88], Internet security software [71], malware [56], anti-malware software [61], social networking sites [70; 71], web browsers [55], games [89; 90], e-mails [60], and smartphones [81; 82]. The 'intention behavior' has been primarily studied in the USA, UAE, U.K., Australia, and Malaysia, respectively. In terms of cybersecurity behavior, the results showed that perceived severity, self-efficacy, perceived vulnerability, cues to action, response efficacy, peer behavior, and perceived barriers were the most influential factors. The technologies/services under this theme include information systems [91], social networking sites [70; 72], web browsers [55], computers [80], smartphones [92], and Internet threats [93]. Understanding what impacts cybersecurity behavior was mainly studied in the USA, U.K., and China, respectively. For avoidance behavior and avoidance motivation, the results indicated that self-efficacy, perceived susceptibility, perceived severity, perceived cost, safeguard effectiveness, safeguard cost, and perceived effectiveness were the dominant influential factors. The leading technologies/services investigated under this theme include Internet threats [83], games [54], smartphones [94], and malware [59]. The USA and Australia were the only active countries conducting studies on avoidance behavior and avoidance motivation. The increasing interest in these two countries stems from the COVID-19 pandemic-related cybercrime reported cases, which have increased to 300% in the USA [95] and 75% in Australia [96]. Concerning the 'usage behavior', the findings showed that perceived ease of use, facilitating conditions, self-efficacy, trust, and habit have significant impacts on using several technologies/services from the perspective of cybercrime and security incidents. These technologies/services include web browsers [59], games [89], smartphones [97], and e-mails [98]. This theme has been mainly studied in Australia and Taiwan.