It seems that buying an Eee Box system, ASUS' desktop version of the highly successful Eee PC netbook, is like playing the Russian roulette. This is because there's a high probability that your own Eee Box system could ship with a virus or a malware, as a bonus from the Taiwanese manufacturer. The news comes from the company itself which, in a recent letter, has warned customers that its recently released Eee Box nettop could come with a virus.

 

According to the details made available, the virus is located on the hard drive's partition D and, once the user turns on the system, it starts copying itself to the main C drive, or to any other removable drives or USB drives. The company hasn't specifically detailed under what circumstances the virus, which is called recycled.exe, has found its way onto the company's new nettop computer system. However, according to the official statement, the virus should only be featured on the models from Japan, where the nettop was introduced last week.

 

With all that, UK-based Register, which has picked up on the story, reports that their review unit, under testing this week, also came with the W32/Taterf worm, aka W32.Gammima.AG or kavo.exe, which is basically a malware that sniffs out online gaming usernames and passwords. It appears, however, that the infection was easily removed by Microsoft's most recent malware removal tool update.

 

The Eee Box is seen as the desktop sibling of the successful Eee PC netbook, which brings a significant contribution to the company's overall revenue. It features the same Atom N270 processor, running at 1.6GHz, and comes with 1GB of RAM memory, just enough to enable a decent experience of a Windows XP operating system. The nettop is available in both black and white color options, and is set to deliver 80GB of storage space on a 2.5-inch hard drive.