Barclays has become the first UK high street bank to offer free security software to its mobile banking customers, in a deal with anti-malware vendor Kaspersky Lab.

Customers logging into the Barclays.mobi site can download the free software, which includes anti-virus, anti-spam and anti-theft protection, by clicking on the 'Kaspersky offer' link.

Kaspersky research released last week suggests that mobile threats are set to rise, as criminals engineer Trojans, viruses and spam specifically for mobile devices. The security vendor detected a new malicious program for the Symbian platform, written in Python, which targets customers of an Indonesian mobile phone operator to offer a bogus money transfer service.

Barclays has taken several steps in recent months to tighten the security of its online banking transactions. The bank was the first to offer free internet security software to its online banking customers, and recently completed the roll out of its PINsentry two-factor authentication system.

"Barclays has offered customers one of the best security packages of all online banks over the last two years, and it is important that customers protect their mobile phones in the same way by downloading this new software," said Sean Gilchrist, director for electronic banking at Barclays.