Hijacked journals mimic legitimate journals by adopting their titles, ISSNs, and other metadata. Usually, hijacked journals mirror legitimate journals without permission from the original journal. Scholars can be duped into publishing in hijacked journals – many of which require fees – by offers of fast publication and indexing in databases such as Scopus. Even the WHO’s COVID literature database has been fooled. Enter the Retraction Watch Hijacked Journal Checker. This resource is dynamic; more journals will be added as their hijacked status are uncovered.
