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"Apple, unfortunately, is lagging behind what it needs to do, to protect its customers," Michael Barrett, PayPal's chief information security officer, tells Info World<

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"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."

Barrett criticises Safari for its lack of a phishing filter to point out suspicious websites to users, something which both Firefox and Internet Explorer offer.

Barret also criticises Safari for failing to support Extended Validation certificates, a security protocol designed to guarantee that the user is visiting an authentic site.

"Safari has got nothing in terms of security support, only SSL (Secure Sockets Layer encryption), that's it," says Barrett.

Safari is the default browser on Apple computers, and is also available on the PC platform, but currently enjoys only 2% of the browser market share.

Apple was unavailable for comment at the time of writing.