mysecurepc.com blog

Logging into PayPal the Right Way

I found out a little nuance in the way you login to PayPal: securely and not securely. Unfortunately, the default is not secure.

When presented to PayPal.com there is a member login and password area. If you login through this, it is *not* secure. Notice http instead of https. If you click on ‘Log In’ it will take you to a secure login web page. https shows up along with the security lock (which shows that the site credentials are for www.paypal.com

Doug

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 29th, 2006 at 6:40 pm and is filed under Online security, Passwords, PayPal. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

4 Responses to “Logging into PayPal the Right Way”

1. gabb17 says:

   December 4, 2006 at 1:47 am

   not true, when going to http://www.paypal.com or paypal.com you’re automatically redirected to https://www.paypal.com
   check the facts before posting …
2. webmaster says:

   December 4, 2006 at 11:52 am

   If I go to http://www.paypal.com it is not secure because it is http://www.paypal.com. There is no lock on the browser to see if I’m really on paypal.com. The web page may be spoofed. If I enter in my email address and password then click on login I do not have any guarantee that the information is being sent to paypal.com - eventually I see it is redirected to a secure page.
   Unfortunately, this flawed technique is popular with banks: you type in your login information on an unsecured page then it is redirected to a secure page. Microsoft and others have warned against this very security problem.

   Doug
3. gabb17 says:

   December 5, 2006 at 6:04 pm

   I’m curious what browser are you using ? I have tried this from 3 different browsers on windows also on linux and mac os. The only thing that didn’t take the redirect right was the old text mode lynx. Whenever typing http://www.paypal.com the browser redirects me to https://www.paypal.com/ *before* I can fill any username/password field. Maybe something’s wrong with the way your browser is set up. But you’re right I have seen the issue you’re describing on other web sites.
4. dd says:

   December 6, 2006 at 3:13 pm

   I did some investigation. If the email and/or password is saved for paypal.com then it will be redirected to https://www.paypal.com. If no login information is saved then it goes to http://www.paypal.com. I tried this in IE7 and Firefox 2.0.
   Of course always clicking on Login brings you to https://www.paypal.com.

   Doug