Enhancing Cyber Hygiene among Communities through Experiential Cyber-Security Awareness Programs

Human error remains the most frequently exploited vulnerability in the cyber-security ecosystem. Despite substantial investments in technical safeguards, cybercriminals increasingly rely on social engineering, misinformation, and emotionally manipulative tactics to compromise users. This study examines behavioral changes among participants who underwent structured cyber-security workshops addressing both conventional cyber hygiene practices and emerging digital threats. The training modules covered digital arrest scams, identity theft, sextortion, fake technical support fraud, fake social media profiles, online gaming related risks, and deep fake manipulation. The workshops were designed using interactive simulations, real world case studies, and hands on problem based exercises, with the explicit objective of shifting participants from passive awareness to active cyber defense. A mixed methods evaluation framework was employed, incorporating pre and post intervention surveys, simulated scam response tests, and follow up assessments conducted over a three month period to measure changes in knowledge, behavioral adoption, and retention of safe digital practices. The findings indicate statistically significant improvements across multiple cyber hygiene indicators. Notable gains were observed in phishing resistance, fake profile detection, and adoption of multi-factor authentication. While deep-fake detection skills demonstrated the highest immediate improvement, they also exhibited the most pronounced decline during follow-up assessments, highlighting challenges related to skill retention in rapidly evolving threat domains. The study underscores the critical importance of continuous reinforcement, contextualized threat education, and adaptive training models to sustain behavioral change. The results suggest that cyber-security capacity-building initiatives must move beyond one time awareness interventions and adopt dynamic, behavior centric approaches aligned with the evolving cybercrime landscape.