The Open Science Platforms Fighting Clandestine Abuses of Piracy and Phishing: Case of Open Science Framework

The Open Science Framework (OSF) is an important and useful platform for researchers to engage in open science practices. However, since 2021, the OSF has been misused for criminal purposes, especially as a hub for pirating copyrighted works and for leading users to phishing sites. This misuse can negatively affect the functionality of open science platform servers; therefore, it is important to take appropriate measures. Such abuse has also been observed on other open science platforms. To protect the sound base of open science in the future, this paper reports some cases in which open science platforms were abused for illegal activities and the corresponding countermeasures taken. Regarding countermeasures against such illegal activities, we contacted members of the Center for Open Science, Inc. (COS) and report the details within the limits of what could be publicly disclosed. Additionally, as there is significant risk of online crime in the future, we discuss and propose various other remedies.