Paypal’s Chief Information Security Officer recommends everyone who has a Paypal account to avoid using Apple’s Safari browser. Apparently, Safari is still way behind in security features compared to Internet Explorer and Firefox.
The story from Infoworld reveals that Paypal is most vulnerable to phishing attacks when accessed via the Safari browser.
Safari doesn’t make PayPal’s list of recommended browsers because it doesn’t have two important anti-phishing security features, according to Michael Barrett, PayPal’s chief information security officer.
Our recommendation at this point, to our customers, is use Internet Explorer 7 or 8 when it comes out, or Firefox 2 or Firefox 3, or indeed Opera.
Safari has no built-in phishing filter to warn users when they are visiting suspicious Web sites, Barrett said. Another problem is Safari’s lack of support for another anti-phishing technology, called Extended Validation (EV) certificates. This is a secure Web browsing technology that turns the address bar green when the browser is visiting a legitimate Web site.
With over 276 million users, Paypal is often a target of phishing scams which also includes online banking websites and social networking sites.
The most likely victims of these Safari-related phishing activities would be regular Mac users running Apple’s built-in browser. And though most internet-savvy users can easily spot a phishing website, it does help to have some sort of warning mechanism from your browser if the site you’re visiting is fake or not.
Do you agree that people should drop Safari?
Just don’t use the Safari Browser when doing paypal transactions if you’re not comfortable with it. If you feel like you can distinguish between phising site and legit ones, then by all means use any browser you like.
I’d preferably use FF first then Opera then IE, in that order, and then Safari and other browsers…