The Risk of Hijacking for Academic Journals

At the moment, there is a risk of hijacking for reputable indexed journals. The cybercriminals search for journals whose websites are not easily reachable to researchers, then develop a fake website for that journals. They mimic the exact name and ISSN of the target journal, and by charging authors, publish papers without peer review. In a new advanced journal hijacking version, cybercriminals register expired domains of academic journals and launch their hijacked journals. To deal with journal hijacking, editors should update the details of their journals on scientific and citation bases. They also have to increase the visibility of their journal website in search engines by utilizing Search Engine Optimization (SEO) techniques. The journals' websites also should be checked against web vulnerabilities and possible issues should be addressed. The problem of journal hijacking is critical, but less discussed. Lack of information about this issue, leads to increasing growth of victims.