When you are the worlds number one target for phishing scams, something has to give. And that something it seems is the old internet browser.

 

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According to statistics from last year, PayPal was the number-one target of scams — more than twice as often as its parent company, eBay, which by the way was the second most popular target.

To combat this, PayPal has announced it is taking the unusual step of 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 Internet Explorer 4,” the company said.

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

 

“By displaying the green glow and company name, these newer browsers make it much easier for users to determine whether or not they’re on the site they thought they were visiting,” said the company in a statement.

Although refusing to do business with people who don’t use the latest browsers may seem disruptive, it is actually an old technique used by a number of software vendors, although exactly how PayPal attempts to act on this initiative will be interesting to sees.