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.
[6] Similar hijacking can occur with academic conferences.
[2][7] In 2012, cyber criminals began hijacking print-only journals by registering a domain name and creating a fake website under the title of the legitimate journals.
[1] In some cases, scammers find their victims in conference proceedings, extracting authors' emails from papers and sending them fake calls for papers.
[3][9] There are several hundred documented cases of journal hijackings; hijacked journals with existing Wikipedia articles include:[10][11]