You may have head in the media about the POODLE vulnerability. Unlike other headline “tech” issues, this isn’t a virus, a trojan or a group of hackers – it’s a flaw in an older version of the SSL protocol. This is the language used between the browser – that is you, looking at the internet, via a browser such as Google Chrome, Microsoft Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox or Apple Safari – and the server – that is the computer providing the web pages to you. This communication, for any private information needs to be encrypted, you can only access the Curato system via an encrypted connection.

POODLE allows for what is know as a Man In The Middle attack, which means if someone can intercept the traffic betwen you and the server they will potentially be able to decrypt the data.

What about the Curato system?

Our servers have been upgraded to no longer allow communication via this protocol, and so will not be affected by the POODLE vulnerability.

What else can you do?

The best place to start is to ensure you are using a modern browser, so upgrade to the latest version of Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Internet Explorer, or Apple Safari.

Next, you can disable your browser and system from ever using SSL 3.0 (the affected protocol) – There are many guides out there, simply search for “My browser name disable SSL 3”, for example “Google Chrome disable SSL 3”. There’s a good guide here which will also show if your browser supports SSLv2 and SSLv3 https://zmap.io/sslv3/

Now, you can take your dog for a walk without any worry about a POODLE!