WINE works well... maybe too well.

It would seem that WINE (which lets you run some Windows software under Linux) actually works well enough to let some malware (in this case, a false antivirus utility) try to infect your Linux system. Of course, it doesn't get very far, as there are major differences between Windows and Linux "under the hood" as it were.

There are three basic points made as to why Linux is safer than Windows when it comes to malware:
1. It's not Windows, and since the majority of malware out there is designed to run on a Windows platform, it simply won't work on a Linux platform (even though it may "get its foot in the door" through WINE.)
2. There are many different distributions of Linux, and malware would need to be targeted at a specific distribution. (I think this may be overly optimistic... I can certainly imagine a polymorphic virus that adapts depending on which distribution it finds itself inhabiting.)
3. Linux users tend to be more computer-savvy than most Windows users, who tend to click on anything that pops up. (I am inclined to agree with this assessment based on my own personal experience providing technical support - though there will always be exceptions.)

The main article is a blog post Does Wine Make Linux Too Loose and features a link to the original post describing the experience, I Can Haz Virus.

Unrelated to the security topic, the LinuxInsider article also mentions the problems some people are having upgrading to Ubuntu 9.10 (also known as Karmic Koala). Full disclosure: I use Ubuntu 9.10 and did not encounter any of those problems.