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When a vulnerability is discovered in a system, some key questions often asked by the security analyst are what threat(s) does it pose, what attacks may exploit it, and which parts of the system it affects. Answers to those questions provide the necessary information for the security assessment and to implement effective countermeasures. In the cloud, this problem is more challenging due to the dynamic characteristics, such as elasticity, virtualization, and migration -changing the attack surface over time. This survey explores threats to the cloud by investigating the linkages between threats, attacks and vulnerabilities, and propose a method to identify threats systematically in the cloud using the threat classifications. First, we trace vulnerabilities to threats by relating vulnerabilities-to-attacks, and then relating attacks-to-threats. We have established the traceability through an extensive literature review and synthesis that resulted in a classification of attacks in the cloud, where we use the Microsoft STRIDE threat modeling approach as a guide for relating attacks to threats. Our approach is the genesis towards a concrete method for systematically identifying potential threats to assets provisioned and managed through the cloud. We demonstrate the approach through its application using a cloud deployment case study scenario.

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The use of Blockchain technology has recently become widespread. It has emerged as an essential tool in various academic and industrial fields, such as healthcare, transportation, finance, cybersecurity, and supply chain management. It is regarded as a decentralized, trustworthy, secure, transparent, and immutable solution that innovates data sharing and management. This survey aims to provide a systematic review of Blockchain application to intelligent transportation systems in general and the Internet of Vehicles (IoV) in particular. The survey is divided into four main parts. First, the Blockchain technology including its opportunities, relative taxonomies, and applications is introduced; basic cryptography is also discussed. Next, the evolution of Blockchain is presented, starting from the primary phase of pre-Bitcoin (fundamentally characterized by classic cryptography systems), followed by the Blockchain 1.0 phase, (characterized by Bitcoin implementation and common consensus protocols), and finally, the Blockchain 2.0 phase (characterized by the implementation of smart contracts, Ethereum, and Hyperledger). We compared and identified the strengths and limitations of each of these implementations. Then, the state of the art of Blockchain-based IoV solutions (BIoV) is explored by referring to a large and trusted source database from the Scopus data bank. For a well-structured and clear discussion, the reviewed literature is classified according to the research direction and implemented IoV layer. Useful tables, statistics, and analysis are also presented. Finally, the open problems and future directions in BIoV research are summarized.

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