As they increase in frequency, severity and sophistication, cyber threats have become part of the cost of doing business for most industries, and credit unions are no exception. In fact, threats can often leave a credit union's small security team in a never-ending reactive state.

It is imperative that credit unions carve out time and resources to create a strategic plan to deal with near-future security issues and proactively secure their institutions. This is where a three-year strategy can be most helpful. The three-year time frame lets organizations more easily identify emerging technologies and trends to best deal with current and future attacks. It also allows security leaders and teams to craft a strategy that pertains specifically to their organization — one that focuses on security delivery, environment security and operational effectiveness.

On the service delivery front, credit unions should make sure they have technologies in place to prevent hacking and threat-related downtime. This includes making sure all patching is up to date: According to estimates from the information security organization SANS Institute, at least 80% of cyber security incidents exploit known vulnerabilities.