The name PayPal is nearly synonymous with phishing scams. According to anti-phishing service PhishTank statistics from last year, PayPal was the number-one target of scams — more than twice as often as PayPal’s parent, eBay, the second most popular target.

On Friday, PayPal announced it was taking an strange step to combat phishing abuse: blocking old and insecure browsers from its site. It is “an alarming fact that there is a significant set of users who use very old and vulnerable browsers, such as World Wide Web Explorer 4,” the company said.

PayPal now supports only the use of Extended Validation SSL Certificates. Browsers that support the technology highlight the address bar in green when users are on a valid site. The latest version of Microsoft Net Explorer supports EV SSL certificates. Firefox 2 supports them with an add-on, but Apple’s Safari browser doesn’t.

Protecting Consumers and Vendors

“By displaying the green glow and company name, these

newer browsers prepare it much easier for users to determine whether or not they’re on the site they thought they were visiting,” said PayPal.

“While refusing to do business with public who don’t use one of these browsers may seem disruptive,” said Andrew Storms, director of defense operations at nCircle Network safety measure, “it is actually a rather old technique used by software vendors.” Just as software vendors specify approved and called for components, “providers of services not only protect their bottom line by making such demands, but plus in the expanded run protect the consumer,” Storms explained.

The problem is that it’s relatively easy to impersonate browsers. “Exactly how and whether PayPal attempts to act on that initiative will be interesting. Apple’s iTunes Store is in essentially the same situation. whether someone wants to use the iTunes Store, they need to use iTunes. So far, that limitation hasn’t seemed to…

Orginal post by Top Tech News