Washingtonpost.com is running a story about a number of botnets and keylogger operations being controlled by Web-sites with point-and-click type front-end software interfaces. Here's an excerpt:

The software -- viewed by a reporter on one of the sites, which washingtonpost.com is not naming because it remains active -- displays detailed graphs showing the distribution of victims by country. At time of this publication, the site harboring Frost's information was receiving a stream of illicit data from a network of roughly 3,000 infected PCs mostly located in Spain, Germany and Britain.

The hacking software also features automated tools that allow the fraudsters to make minute adjustments or sweeping changes to their networks of hacked PCs. With the click of a mouse or a drag on a pull-down menu, users can add or delete files on infected computers.

They can even update their spyware installations with new versions tailored to defeat the most recent anti-virus updates. With one click on the Web site's "Add New Exploit" button, users can simultaneously modify all of the keylogger programs already installed on their networks.

Symantec and other security experts also have spotted earlier versions of the software installed on at least two other Web sites, one of which is still active and has harvested password information from nearly 30,000 victims, the bulk of whom reside in the United States and Brazil.