A virus that first appeared on Hewlett-Packard Co.'s Web site six years ago was recently detected in a device driver being distributed to HP customers over the Internet, a security firm said Thursday.

The Funlove virus was discovered Wednesday in a driver available through HP's FTP servers, BitDefender said. The security company notified the Palo Alto, Calif., computer maker and the application was removed from the Web site.

"This incident highlights the importance of checking outgoing file traffic in a corporate environment and is proof of the uncanny survivability of file infectors in general," Bogdan Dumitru, chief technology officer for BitDefender, set in a statement.

The virus attempts to gain administrative rights on Windows NT, giving a remote computer the ability to read and modify files when a user logs in, BitDefender said. The malware can also infect Windows 9x/ME/2000.

HP was not immediately available for comment.