Stu Sjouwerman, founder/CEO of the Clearwater, Fla.-based KnowBe4, warned of one specific hacking method criminals are likely to focus on.

“In 2016, you will see an integrity attack in the financial sector in which millions of dollars will be stolen by cyber thieves who will modify selected data in the transaction stream, resulting in a significant redirection of payment to anonymized accounts,” he said. “How they will get in? Spear phishing.”

Data thieves will take advantage of weak passwords or other holes found within critical or sensitive systems, another expert noted.

“Hackers are specifically looking for personally identifiable information to steal, to ultimately sell on the black market,” Dodi Glenn, vice president, cybersecurity at the Sioux City, Iowa-based PC Pitstop, pointed out. “IT admins need to ensure they have strong passwords, and are consistently monitoring the health of the network for potential threats. They also need to ensure their systems are patched, and do not contain vulnerabilities.”

Jespersen said he expects to see a continued shift from simple, executable malware to increasingly faster introductions of new, creative and advanced persistent threats and exploits, including some that are extremely targeted.

Targeted distributed denial of service attacks may also arise, particularly when a company angers the public, Glenn warned.

“The loosely formed hacking group Anonymous has published tools that are designed to take down websites and servers by sending bogus data to them,” he said.

Advanced endpoint solutions are becoming increasingly important, especially those that provide coordinated detection and analysis to help thwart evolving threats, experts advised.

Learn more about what cybersecurity experts foresee for 2016 in the Jan. 13, 2016 print issue of Credit Union Times.