With 2018 in full swing, the question on many lips is likely what lies ahead? What can we expect to see shaping the technology landscape in the next twelve months, and how should businesses be proactive accordingly?

Citrix is one of the heavy weights in the industry which has made a series of predictions to this end, offering a series of snapshots that those in the technology industry and businesses in general may well find value in paying attention to.

The first is the imminent death of the password in 2018. Citrix explains that in the place of the password, we will see a wide variety of authentication methods being introduced that will replace passwords, including biometrics and behaviour analytics.

Citrix also expects that security breaches – which famously plagued 2017, making more than a few companies WannaCry – will accelerate to record heights. This it asserts, will force companies to abandon traditional passwords as a way to protect accounts. This is not much of a leap, considering that too many users consider 123456 or ‘password’ as a valid way to secure their precious data or network access.

A further prediction is that access to web pages and apps will become much more controlled in order to protect end users, which will limit the viral nature of the web as we know it today. Considering that the fate of US net neutrality is currently also hanging by a thread, it’s not difficult to imagine us dealing with a rather different internet than we are used to post 2018.

 And finally, Citrix believes that 2018 is the year in which we will see dark web concepts being adopted by web apps to limit exposure. For those for whom the dark web is an unfamiliar term, this refers to portions of the web that aren’t readily accessible without specific credentials.

For organisations, the takeaway from this prediction is that security is everyone’s business. Just in case you weren’t paying much attention to it in 2017, expect 2018 to make security a prime consideration.