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A new Trojan horse hidden in a Mac OS X application can steal sensitive user data and take control of the computer’s GPU to generate Bitcoins, a form of currency used online.

U.S. Federal Gov't Developed and Deployed STUXNET and Flame malware. Steals data and destroys equipment.

Online theft is a fact of life nowadays, but yesterday a BitCoin user woke to find his haul of virtual currency had been plundered. A user with the handle allinvain found 25,000 BitCoins had been stolen. If the thief were to cash-out he or she would net just about $500,000 at current BitCoin-US Dollar exchange rates.

Over the years, Bitcoin has experienced ups and downs; the currency has been targeted by hackers and thieves and botnets and been victim to more than one embarrassing software glitch. But it has persevered, and this week, one can fairly say that Bitcoin came of age. On Monday, the U.S. Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network released its first “guidance” as to how “de-centralized virtual currencies” should fit into the larger regulatory regime under which currencies of all kinds are required to operate.

Bitcoin sounds like something from science fiction: A purely digital currency, created by an anonymous hacker, that operates outside the world's traditional banking systems. The four-year-old currency is very real, though, and it's trading an all-time high, tripling in value in the last two months alone. One bitcoin is was worth about $40 U.S. dollars on Tuesday, and surged on Wednesday to nearly $49. That's up from around $13 in January, and 5 cents in 2010, according to Mt. Gox, the bitcoin market's main exchange.

In Kreuzberg, Berlin, virtual currency Bitcoin has expanded off the internet to become a favoured medium of exchange in real shops and bars. Joerg Platzer, the owner of bar Room 77 is helping to establish what he believes to be the world's first Bitcoin local economy.

(U//FOUO) Bitcoin – A decentralized, peer-to-peer (P2P) network-based virtual currency – provides a venue for individuals to generate, transfer, launder, and steal illicit funds with some anonymity. Bitcoin offers many of the same challenges associated with other virtual currencies, such as WebMoney, and adds unique complexities for investigators because of its decentralized nature.

Users of electronic cash protocol Bitcoin might soon have another way to access and spend funds...Charlie Shrem...revealed that his company was 6-8 weeks away from launching a Bitcoin-funded international debit / credit card that will be issued by two unnamed major banks: one international and one domestic...the card will function like a regular debit or credit account and should be accepted wherever MasterCard is accepted – virtually everywhere. The first 1,000 cards will be given away for free but after those have been spoken for, expect to pay around $10 for a card.

This is a talk by Bitcoin core developer Mike Hearn of Google where he discusses "The future of Bitcoin: new applications and rebuilding the banking system" at the London Bitcoin Conference 2012. Watch it to learn how Bitcoin can revolutionize more than "just" money.