Asus Eee Box shipped with virus

Japanese consumers who have bought an Asus Eee Box desktop PC are on virus alert.

The manufacturer, best known for its Eee mini-laptops, has released a warning that the machines, which were launched only last week, may have shipped with a virus.

The virus is called "recycled.exe" and Asus says that it is located on the Eee Box's D drive.

As soon as the virus is opened, it will copy itself to the main C drive and to any other removable drives or USB drives, it adds.

However, Asus has not released any details as to how the virus could have got onto the new computers, or whether versions shipping to other countries, including the UK, will be affected.