Security experts warn of ‘POODLE’ attack against SSL 3.0

Google researchers have found a severe flaw in an obsolete but still used encryption software, which could be exploited to steal sensitive data.

The flaw in SSL 3.0 is more than 15 years old but is still used by modern web browsers and servers. SSL stands for “Secure Sockets Layer,” which encrypts data between a client and server and secures most data sent over the Internet.

Bodo Möller, Thai Duong and Krzysztof Kotowicz of Google developed an attack called “POODLE,” which stands for Padding Oracle On Downgraded Legacy Encryption, according to their research paper.

Web browsers are designed to use newer versions of SSL or TLS (Transport Layer Security), but most browsers will accommodate SSL 3.0 if that’s all that a server can do on the other end.

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