Bound to happen. As the OS gets more popular, more viruses will be written for it. My concern is that, since Linux is open source, it'll be a ton easier to find and exploit holes in it.
True. But people have been warned about that old AWSTATS vulnerability for months, though -- another example of servers or individual computers being attacked when they could have been easily prevented by updates that were available for months and too many people just couldn't be bothered to make the time to update (PHP, phpBB, Internet Explorer, Outlook/Outlook Express, and a long list of others come to mind).
Yeah, but it's also a ton easier to find and fix the bugs before attackers do. I doubt we'll see this worm spreading on anywhere near the scale of slammer or code red, despite the fact that there are an order of magnitude more Linux servers that Windows on the Internet. The simple fact is that these vulns are old, patches have been out for a while, and most people have already been exploited if they didn't fix it
I'm not certain that's true for AWSTATS or PHP. One of the vulnerabilities attributed to phpBB early this year or late last year was in fact a PHP issue, not phpBB, and targeted older versions of PHP (several updates behind). Similarly, one still sees non-updated versions of AWSTATS being identified as problems. I think people are becoming aware of the need to update OSs and even browsers but they are less aware of or less worried about other software that may allow access to hackers or virus-makers.