Cloud Computing is a flexible, cost-effective, and proven delivery platform for providing business or consumer IT services over the Internet. However, cloud Computing presents an added level of risk because essential services are often outsourced to a third party, which makes it harder to maintain data security and privacy, support data and service availability, and demonstrate compliance. Cloud Computing leverages many technologies (SOA, virtualization, Web 2.0); it also inherits their security issues, which we discuss here, identifying the main vulnerabilities in this kind of systems and the most important threats found in the literature related to Cloud Computing and its environment as well as to identify and relate vulnerabilities and threats with possible solutions.

Restoring vision by stimulating the brain: Electrical stimulation of the visual cortex has long been proposed as an approach to restoring vision in blind people. Previous studies positioned electrodes on the surface of the brain and thus required delivery of relatively high currents. However, this approach limits the number of electrodes that can be safely stimulated simultaneously, and such surface electrodes activate several millimeters of cortex, which results in a low spatial resolution. Chen et al. demonstrated that the simultaneous stimulation of multiple intracortical electrodes in the monkey primary visual cortex gives rise to the perception of shape and successive stimulation to the perception of motion (see the Perspective by Beauchamp and Yoshor). This major improvement provides proof of concept for the use of electrical microstimulation to create a form of artificial vision in the blind. Science , this issue p. 1191 ; see also p. 1165

BACKGROUND. A long-held goal of vision therapy is to transfer information directly to the visual cortex of blind individuals, thereby restoring a rudimentary form of sight. However, no clinically available cortical visual prosthesis yet exists. METHODS. We implanted an intracortical microelectrode array consisting of 96 electrodes in the visual cortex of a 57-year-old person with complete blindness for a 6-month period. We measured thresholds and the characteristics of the visual percepts elicited by intracortical microstimulation. RESULTS. Implantation and subsequent explantation of intracortical microelectrodes were carried out without complications. The mean stimulation threshold for single electrodes was 66.8 ± 36.5 μA. We consistently obtained high-quality recordings from visually deprived neurons and the stimulation parameters remained stable over time. Simultaneous stimulation via multiple electrodes was associated with a significant reduction in thresholds (P < 0.001, ANOVA) and evoked discriminable phosphene percepts, allowing the blind participant to identify some letters and recognize object boundaries. CONCLUSIONS. Our results demonstrate the safety and efficacy of chronic intracortical microstimulation via a large number of electrodes in human visual cortex, showing its high potential for restoring functional vision in the blind. TRIAL REGISTRATION. ClinicalTrials.gov identifier NCT02983370. FUNDING. The Spanish Ministerio de Ciencia Innovación y Universidades, the Generalitat Valenciana (Spain), the Europan Union’s Horizon 2020 programme, the Bidons Egara Research Chair of the University Miguel Hernández (Spain), and the John Moran Eye Center of the University of Utah.

We studied the consequences of long-term implantation of a penetrating microelectrode array in peripheral nerve over the time course of 4-6 mo. Electrode arrays without lead wires were implanted to test the ability of different containment systems to protect the array and nerve during contractions of surrounding muscles. Treadmill walking was monitored and the animals showed no functional deficits as a result of implantation. In a different set of experiments, electrodes with lead wires were implanted for up to 7 mo and the animals were tested at 2-4 week intervals at which time stimulation thresholds and recorded sensory activity were monitored for every electrode. It was shown that surgical technique highly affected the long-term stimulation results. Results between measurement sessions were compared, and in the best case, the stimulation properties stabilized in 80% of the electrodes over the course of the experiment (162 days). The recorded sensory signals, however, were not stable over time. A histological analysis performed on all implanted tissues indicated that the morphology and fiber density of the nerve around the electrodes were normal.