> Linux as a desktop was always extremely vulnerable to bad actors.

Most distros people use as a desktop are alarmingly insecure by default,the security model lags well behind macOS and even Windows (again, by default. You can of course do work to harden it).

You lose out on hardware verified boot with signed system volumes, virtualization backed security, granular runtime permissions (apps having full R/W on ~Home, screen recording, microphone access).

Immutable distros like Silverblue, flatpak are moving linux desktop security in the right direction but its far from the default, and there are still gaps that need to be closed.

We (Linux community) loves to criticize security through obscurity, but that's exactly what most desktop linux users are relying on to not get pwned, relying on marketshare being so low that there just hasn't been that many incidents.