Barclays Bank offers free security software for mobile Internet users

Barclays is offering its mobile banking customers free security software for download. Provided by internet security firm Kaspersky, the software is available free of charge from Barcalys dotMobi site.

About the software:

The free software covers three areas of smartphone security.

Protection from viruses and malicious programs: antivirus scanning of all incoming files and connections along with on-demand antivirus scanning of the phone’s internal memory and extension cards.
Anti-Spam protection: screens out potentially unwanted text messages by defining filters.
Anti-theft protection: allows data deletion and phone blocking to be carried out remotely in case of theft.

From the release:

Sean Gilchrist, Director for Electronic Banking, said: “Barclays has offered customers one of the best security packages of all online banks over the last two years and it’s important that customers protect their mobile phones in the same way they do their computers from all threats, by downloading this new software.”

What we think?

This is the second time Barclays has issued free security software to it’s customers. Last time was for it’s online customers in 2008. With this release, Barclays claim to be the first UK bank to give free mobile security for customers. Regardless of whether or not the software is effective, it’s a great PR excercise. There’ve been quite a few mobile web security scares recently, and the last thing that’s needed in the mobil space is even more nervous consumers.