Abstract— Cloud computing has been developed to reduce IT expenses and to provide agile IT services to individual users as well as organizations. It moves computing and data away from desktop and portable PCs into large data centers. This technology gives the opportunity for more innovation in lightweight smart devices and it forms an innovative method of performing business. Cloud computing depends on the internet as a medium for users to access the required services at any time on pay-per-use pattern. However this technology is still in its initial stages of development, as it suffers from threats and vulnerabilities that prevent the users from trusting it. Various be rainy as well, in other words this technology is not trustworthy as it is affected with threats and vulnerabilities. We have termed a cloud with threats and vulnerabilities as a stormy cloud. Based on Cloud Security Alliance (CSA) and our research, we have identified top seven threats and vulnerabilities that are the causes behind the creation of a stormy cloud [1]. The identified threats and vulnerabilities are ranked from top to bottom as shown in Fig.1. malicious activities from illegal users have threatened this technology such as data misuse, inflexible access control and limited monitoring. The occurrence of these threats may result into damaging or illegal access of critical and confidential data of users. This research paper describes the characteristics (threats, vulnerabilities) associated with a stormy cloud.
Keywords- Illegal access, Threats, Vulnerabilities
I. INTRODUCTION The traditional era of computing involves the use of software, hardware and storage to achieve the required computational service whereas cloud computing has isolated the services from resources (networks, storage, servers). The required
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