Encouraging operators is far more effective

McAfee, which last year announced it was getting out of the consumer mobile anti-malware business, has said it is now concentrating on getting network operators to sort out the problem.

Jan Volzke, McAfee's head of global marketing, said at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona that it would be nearly impossible to get consumers to install security software onto handsets because of the way they are set up.

"You can do this on the PC because Microsoft opened up the software," he said. "But there are too many with mobile. Say you have a Motorola Razr: you've got no way to put security software on there at all as a consumer but the operator could do it."

He said that McAfee's latest consumer study into mobile security showed over half of all consumers wanted this approach and nearly 60 per cent thought that it should be the network operator's responsibility anyway.

While some smartphone platforms would be able to install and run anti-malware software he said that was a tiny percentage of the market.

"F-Secure can take smartphones, we'll take 90 per cent," he said.