From Zombie Cookies to USB keyboard trackers, 2015 may prove to be the biggest year yet for hackers and info-miners.

Forget the Target, Home Depot and Chase Bank breaches that left scores of people scurrying to change their passwords. Those cyber break-ins were baby-stuff compared to where these thieves are headed.

The biggest technology boom this year won’t be from internet providers or smart phone manufacturers. It will come from techies, app designers and rogue individuals who are rushing to create new devices, viruses and shadow programs–that seamlessly find their way through firewalls, security settings and password protection–to gather as much data as they can and slam the door behind them on the way out.

As we know Sony Pictures was recently hacked, Hollywood starlets have had their personal photos ripped from “the cloud”. On Monday, hackers claiming to work on behalf of Islamic State seized control of the Twitter and YouTube sites of the military’s U.S. Central Command. Even our own government, who can’t effectively launch a healthcare website, has found a way to deploy their personal brand of cyber-stalking and email hacking.

So what’s an individual to do to avoid having their personal information sucked up by the system? Well there really isn’t much you can do except…use a password generator like this, never store your passwords in a word document on your desktop titled, “passwords.” Try dashlane for secure password management. Don’t sign up for “promotions” and “freebies” willy-nilly and lastly, go through your personal online history and delete profiles on websites you no longer use. It may take a while but minimizing your digital footprints is a great way to start.