If you trust the credibility of Slashdot editors, perhaps. Slashdot is featuring an article from APC on the usual surge of trojan viruses that masquerade as a crack for or free download of the newest Windows Operating System. Then, in some twist of editorial alarm, the Slashdot post goes on to state that "More worrying though, Microsoft has confirmed that Vista's image-based install process is designed to allow third-party software to be slipstreamed into the installation DVD..." which they purport is "a huge benefit for malware writers, who can distribute Vista images with deeply-rooted malware." The interesting thing is that the "newsworthy" content that they can pull out of this was really from an extended synopsis about customization in an interview with Microsoft Austrailia Client specialist, John Pritchard.
The simple fact of the matter is that Vista is not the first version of Windows to allow administrators or other interested parties to slipstream software or servicepacks onto the installation media. Further, I fail to see where this becomes a significant risk unless you are trying to attempt an operation outside the defined guidelines of ethical software acquisition and installation. The underlying core of the story is absolutely true. Yes, as with every other OS or in-demand software release in the history of the world, when the new software comes out, someone is going to be trying to pass off bad software as that new software to careless users who dont care about how the software is acquired. Yes, it is true that were someone to want to do so, they could quite easily slipstream malware onto the image and then allow that out for "free download".
I still fail to see how this is 1) any different from XP and 2) a risk for users who legitimately purchase software. If you spend a few minutes to hop on google and search for "Windows XP cracks" as I did this morning preparing for this post, you will note that google returns a genuinely large number of hits. In my case, the hitcount on that searchphrase was more than 2.4 million resources! Searching for "Windows Vista cracks" turns up 2.3 million resources. The unfortunate downside of today's internet culture is that vulture sites are out there purporting to offer "free OS downloads", "cracks", "serialz", et al, and are usually quite dangerous as a means to acquiring software. I know third graders that know better than to trust software downloaded from the underbelly of the internet.
The editorial fallacy that this dynamic is somehow "new" or "worse" with Vista (and particularly to imply that the architecture of Vista is to blame for this dynamic) is silly.