The characteristics of cloud computing are
1. 0n-demand self-service: A consumer can unilaterally provision computing capabilities, such as server time and network storage, as needed automatically without requiring human interaction with each service provider.
2. Broad network access: Capabilities are available over the network and accessed through standard mechanisms that promote use by heterogeneous thin or thick client platforms(e.g, mobile phones, tablets, laptops and workstations).
3. Resource pooling: The provider's computing resources are pooled to serve multiple consumers using a multi-tenant model, with different physical and virtual resources dynamically assigned and reassigned according to consumer demand. There is a sense of location independence in that the customer generally has no control or knowledge over the exact location of the provided resources but may be able to specify location at a higher level of abstraction(e.g, country, state or datacenter).
Examples of resources include storage, processing, memory and network bandwidth.
4. Rapid elasticity: Capabilities can be elastically provisioned and released, in some cases automatically, to scale rapidly outward and inward commensurate with demand. To the consumer, the capabilities available for provisioning often appear to be unlimited and can be appropriated in any quantity at anytime.
5. Measured service: Cloud systems automatically control and optimize resource use by leveraging a metering capability at some level of abstraction appropriate to the type of service(e.g, storage, processing, bandwidth and active user accounts).
Resource usage can be monitored, controlled and reported, providing transparency for the provider and consumer.

Virtual machine escape is an exploit in which the attacker runs code on a VM that allows an operating system running within it to break out and interact directly with the hypervisor. Such an exploit could give the attacker access to the host operating system and all other virtual machines(VMs) running on that host.

The key component and differentiator related to regulated PII is mandatory breach reporting requirements. At present. 47 states and territories within the United States, including the District of Columbia. Puerto Rico. and the Virgin Islands, have legislation in place that requires both private and government entities to notify and inform individuals of any security breaches involving PII.

Explanation:
This type of question are asked to create confusion.
Following are the five phases of SDLC:
1. Planning and requirements analysis: Business and security requirements and standards are being determined. This phase is the main focus of the project managers and stakeholders. Meetings with managers, stakeholders, and users are held to determine requirements. The software development lifecycle calls for all business requirements(functional and nonfunctional)to be defined even before initial design begins. Planning for the quality-assurance requirements and identification of the risks associated with the project are also conducted in the planning stage. The requirements are then analyzed for their validity and the possibility of incorporating them into the system to be developed.
2. Defining: The defining phase is meant to clearly define and document the product requirements to place them in front of the customers and get them approved. This is done through a requirement specification document, which consists of all the product requirements to be designed and developed during the project lifecycle.
3. Designing: System design helps in specifying hardware and system requirements and helps in defining overall system architecture. The system design specifications serve as input for the next phase of the model. Threat modeling and secure design elements should be undertaken and discussed here.
4. Developing: Upon receiving the system design documents, work is divided into modules or units and actual coding starts. This is typically the longest phase of the software development lifecycle. Activities include code review, unit testing, and static analysis.
5. Testing: After the code is developed, it is tested against the requirements to make sure that the product is actually solving the needs gathered during the requirements phase. During this phase, unit testing, integration testing, system testing, and acceptance testing are conducted.