PayPal To Block 'Unsafe' Browsers, Including Safari

The eBay hunters who regularly make financial transactions on the Internet soon will have to meet a new set of security standards. PayPal, an eBay subsidiary that provides an e-commerce alternative to traditional currency exchange, said it will take steps to block transactions from users with outdated browsers or those that don't have the necessary security features, the BBC reports.

That list includes Apple's Safari browser and versions of Microsoft's Internet Explorer dating back to 1996. PayPal's chief information security officer Michael Barrett and Dan Levy, director of risk management, outlined in a company white paper, the path to prevent malicious attempts to uncover the user's personal information, called phishing.

"In our view letting users view the PayPal site on [an unsafe] browser is equal to a car manufacturer allowing drivers to buy one of their vehicles without seatbelts," the paper read. The company did not lay out a timetable for when older browsers would be blocked.

This development comes months after a warning PayPal issued in February, advising users not to make transactions using Apple's Safari. The company claimed Safari didn't meet the encryption standards that help prevent phishing.

Safari is the lone browser among Internet Explorer 7, Firefox 2 and Opera 9 that does not have a phishing filter. Safari also does not support Extended Validation SSL (Secure Socket Layer) Certificates, which Web sites use to alert purchasers to the level of the site's security.