With video streaming site Twitch paying lucrative wages to celebrity gamers, it was inevitable—botnet-for-hire services that use hacked computers to fraudulently inflate viewership.

According to a report published Friday by security firm Symantec, underground markets and, in some cases, sites on the open Web host several services promising to generate large viewing audiences on Twitch and other streaming sites. One such service claims that each infected computer can be commandeered to open five separate streams carried on a selected broadcaster's Twitch channels. (To keep owners of the compromised computers in the dark, the streams are hidden and muted.) Premium services also offer automated "chatters" that interject users' comments live during the streaming.

"While many broadcasters stream their gameplay online as a hobby, some have managed to turn it into a well-paid full time job," Symantec researcher Lionel Payet wrote. "Over the past few years, this business model has grown sharply, so it's unsurprising that scammers are piggybacking on the industry in a parallel underground economy."

Botnets that drive fake viewers are just one of the ways criminals are targeting game-playing streaming. As Ars reported last month, professional gamer Joshua Peters found about 10 gun-toting SWAT team members were at his door as thousands of viewers looked on. The SWATting attack was carried out by someone who made an emergency call to police and falsely reported that a gunman had killed somebody in Peters' house and was still inside. The call was doctored so that gunshots were heard on the call. As Ars has also reported, denial-of-service attacks are sometimes aimed at game servers used by celebrity players who broadcast live video streams of their gaming prowess . By taking the servers down, the griefers deprived the gamers of a valuable revenue, er, stream.

One fake viewership service has prices that range from $30 for 100 viewers and 40 chatters to $160 for 1,000 viewers and 400 chatters. A rival service claims to offer customer support and help setting up the bots. There's no indication how many broadcasters are using these services or what percentage of Twitch user accounts are bots.