It puzzles me that Arstechnica is the only place that has this story.
dude! i'm not getting a dell!
this tribe is not the Yanamamo, is it?
Yes I remember news about them, the problem is that you need to enter the root password to install them. There are proof of concept virus like this for linux to, but they just would not spread that well in the real world.
/sarcasm
He's still more of a reporter than George Stephanopoulos.
Quick, call torchwood!
For Windows nothing ever beats Avast 4 Home Edition. Its great, free, and the program and virus definition updates are also free and very frequent. Often I get virus database updates at least 4 to 5 times a week, all automatically.
That's great until you want to install something that isn't in the repositories yet.