Journal hijacking refers to the brandjacking of a legitimate academic journal by a malicious third party. Typically, the imposter journal sets up a fraudulent website for the purpose of offering scholars the opportunity to rapidly publish their research online for a fee. The term hijacked journal may refer to either the fraud or the legitimate journal. The fraudulent journals are also known as "clone journals". Similar hijacking can occur with academic conferences.
Background In 2012, cybercriminals began hijacking print-only journals by registering a domain name and creating a fake website under the title of the legitimate journals.
The first journal to be hijacked was the Swiss journal Archives des Sciences. In 2012 and 2013, more than 20 academic journals were hijacked. In some cases, scammers find their victims in conference proceedings, extracting authors' emails from papers and sending them fake calls for papers.
There have also been instances of journal hijacking wherein hijackers take over the journal's existing domain name after the journal publisher neglects to pay the domain name registration fees on time.
List of hijacked journals There are several hundred documented cases of journal hijackings, including:
Academy of Management Annals Arctic Australian Journal of Herpetology Aut Aut Bothalia: African Biodiversity & Conservation British Journal of Canadian Studies Bulletin of Hispanic Studies Chelonian Conservation and Biology Comptes Rendus de l'Académie Bulgare des Sciences Entomologist's Gazette Epistemologia Iheringia International Journal of Central Banking International Journal of Multicultural Education Jökull Journal of Interdisciplinary Cycle Research Journal of Natural Products The Journal of Psychology Journal of Psychology & Theology Journal of Scientific Temper Journal of the IEST Journal of Vacuum Science and Technology Jundishapur Journal of Microbiology Levant Natural History The Nautilus Novy Mir Organization Development Journal Positif Pragmatics Preslia Research-Technology Management Salmagundi Scandia Social Evolution & History Specialusis Ugdymas Sylwan The Veliger Wulfenia Ymer
See also :Category:Hijacked journals Cybersquatting Confidence trick Passing off Predatory open access publishing
References
Bibliography
External links American librarian Jeffrey Beall's hijacked journal and authentic journal list Hijacked Journal Checker