The POODLE attack (which stands for "Padding Oracle On Downgraded Legacy Encryption") is a man-in-the-middle exploit which takes advantage of Internet and security software clients' fallback to SSL 3.0. If attackers successfully exploit this vulnerability, on average, they only need to make 256 SSL 3.0 requests to reveal one byte of encrypted messages. Bodo Möller, Thai Duong and Krzysztof Kotowicz from the Google Security Team discovered this vulnerability; they disclosed the vulnerability publicly on October 14, 2014 (despite the paper being dated "September 2014" ). Ivan Ristic does not consider the POODLE attack as serious as the Heartbleed and Shellshock attacks. On December 8, 2014 a variation of the POODLE vulnerability that affected TLS was announced.

The poodle is a group of formal dog breeds, the Standard Poodle, Miniature Poodle and Toy Poodle. The Fédération Cynologique Internationale (FCI) recognizes four sizes of one breed: standard, medium, miniature, and toy. Poodles exist in many coat colors. Originally bred in Germany as a type of water dog, the breed was standardized in France. The poodle is skillful in many dog sports, including agility, obedience, tracking, and even herding. Poodles have taken top honors in many conformation shows, including "Best in Show" at the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show in 1991 and 2002, and at the World Dog Show in 2007 and 2010.