As the Internet of Things continues to change the world and the way people live, it will also continue to open threat possibilities for all connected devices, whether they be consumer products or industrial systems. BeyondTrust expects 2017 to be no different — a year of change, growth, and advancement.

And in the next five years, technological threats and innovation may drive us to a world we scarcely recognize, for good and for bad, says the company. Imagine the implications of compromised self-driving cars. Consider embedded identification technology, powered by the human body in which it resides, giving two-factor identification new meaning. Five years could bring the end of privacy laws, operating systems and anti-virus software, with even the possibility of a video game taking down a repressive regime.

Following are BeyondTrust’s top 10 technology predictions for 2017:

• The first state cyberattack will be conducted and acknowledged as an act of war. 2017 will see the first large-scale attack by one nation against another, and be acknowledged as an attack and the techniques used considered as weapons.
• Password reuse will fade, out of necessity. Reusing passwords, one of the most dangerous user practices, will take center stage amid large security breaches, convincing more people to use unique passwords.
• The Internet of Things (IoT) will come under government scrutiny and require manufacturers to tighten security. Manufacturers will be forced to tighten security, including patchable firmware/software, secured authentication, and controlled privilege access, driven by large-scale attacks using IoT.
• Commercialized anti-DDoS will emerge. Following constant DDoS attacks above the 500GB mark, a new startup that directly attacks and patches botnet systems will launch in an unregulated country, and patch a hundred million hosts.
• Behavioral technologies will be embedded into new technologies. Pressure, typing speed and fingerprints will be used to advance biometric recognition to protect devices from cybercrime.
• Adaptive and behavior-based authentication will grow in importance. Mobility, cloud deployments and increased regulation will drive innovation in identity verification.
• Tor v2 will come online. Since the government has infiltrated the Tor network, companies will start to set up cross-country file transfer networks, moving toward a fully encrypted, clear text network.
• Compliance concerns will drive growth in the endpoint and device market. A hard stance on outdated software accessing banking systems will knock user acceptance down 40 percent, but increase the purchase of new computers, Chrome books, mobile devices, and tablets that are more secure than older systems.
• Known vulnerabilities will continue to be exploited. Most attacks will begin with an exploit taking advantage of a known vulnerability where a patch has been readily available.
• Cloud vendors will increase security measures. Attacks on cloud platforms, workloads, and enterprise software-as-a-service (SaaS) applications convince organizations to expand their privileged access management.

Read more on the 2017 cybersecurity predictions and the  2022 predictions on the BeyondTrust Web site.

Brianna Crandall is the editor of FMLink, the online publication for facilities managers.