University of North Texas 
Cybersecurity professionals are partnering with the University of North Texas to study and combat cybercrime from a sociological perspective – taking a unique approach to preventing fraud.
“We need to think differently about the problem,” said Randy Potts, chief information security officer at Real Time Resolutions. “We’ve been battling it from a tech perspective, but how do we educate everyone to understand these attacks?”
Randy is the co-founder of CISO XC, a cybersecurity professional organization. His connection to UNT is a familial one: his sister, Helen, is a sociology professor.
When Helen asked Randy to collaborate on NEXUS, an interdisciplinary learning and research initiative focused on the intersection of human behavior and cybercrime, he saw “a chance to actually make a change in what has been an exponential increase in data breaches.”
Most cyber attacks begin with a user falling victim to fraud, Randy said. The tactics range widely, from phishing emails with malicious links to fraudsters impersonating someone else with deepfake technology over the phone.
Studying the social aspect of cybercrime helps security professionals understand why attacks happen, which prepares them to both effectively respond to cybercrimes and prevent fraud from occurring.
NEXUS aims to immerse students in this new work through classes, certifications, research conferences, internship opportunities and more.
Randy said he is interested in program’s potential to research the most effective ways to teach users how to identify potential security risks.
“I don’t think we know where to even start on the right answer as to how we make people more impervious to different sorts of fraud tactics,” Randy said.
Artificial intelligence is another research topic that could greatly benefit cybersecurity professionals, Randy said, partially because the technology can be both helpful and harmful in the field.
While AI can be used as a large-scale educational tool and provide real-time support when users are unsure if they are at risk of fraud, it is also being used more frequently in cyberattacks.
“AI is going to be used more on the social engineering side,” Randy said. “The research could be most helpful trying to help people understand how they can deal with these new complications in living in the 21st century.”
Studying the intersection of cybercrime and sociology opens students to a variety of careers, Randy said. Traditional security technicians can improve their people skills and become better leaders, while a human resources professional can set themselves apart by specializing in cybersecurity awareness.
NEXUS could benefit students outside of the cybersecurity field, too, Randy said.
“It could fold into a core curriculum, no matter what you’re doing,” he said. “Understanding cybersecurity and how to avoid fraud is going to be critical because it’s starting to impact almost every industry.”
Helen Potts’ Cybercrime and Social Behavior course is being offered for the first time Spring 2026. The sociology class is open to students from any major.
NEXUS’ first annual Cybercrime and Social Behavior Research Conference is April 2, with abstract proposals accepted until March 1.