Malicious Facebook applications are turning users into bots.Applications like “Who has checked your profile?” and “Who is reading your information?” can turn the profiles of unsuspecting Facebook users into spam bots, said Sheri Thompson, IT planning and communications officer.”It makes your Facebook identity a bot,” Thompson said. “It makes it so you’re now spamming people, but you don’t know it.”The applications use the “attractive proposition” of allowing users to see who has looked at their profile to trick them into giving up control of their account, according to Websense.com, a Web security site.”Facebook policy and the [application programming interface] itself prevent this capability, which means that all applications that promise this feature are bogus,” according to Websense.Roben West, political science sophomore, said she received invitations to applications like “Who has checked your profile?” from her friends, but she always ignores them.West said she uses Facebook’s application rating system to decide whether an application is credible and safe to download.”Facebook has star ratings, so if it only has one star, I won’t download it,” West said.There is no sure-fire way to tell if an application is malicious, but there are signs, Thompson said.”There’s no hard-and-fast rule, but look for things like spelling errors and grammar errors,” Thompson said. “You can also Google them and see if they’re legitimate or not.”These malicious applications can take over and make posts on friends’ walls not written by users once they allow the applications access to their profiles. The applications can then take over and make posts on friends’ walls not written by the user.West said she has received spam posts saying things like “Check out this photo — is this you?” and finds it irritating.”It’s annoying, but it’s not their fault,” West said.Andrew Davis, history sophomore, said he stays away from all Facebook applications because he thinks most of them are not worth downloading.Spam posts caused by users with hacked accounts are bad for both those users and the friends whose walls they post on, Davis said.”It’s irritating, and I’m sure it’s embarrassing for the other person, too,” he said.But Davis said he doesn’t let the spam posts bother him.”I just ignore it and laugh at them behind their back,” Davis said.Thompson said ITS offers computer security programs to students for free on TigerWare, like antivirus and spybot destroyer software.”If you’re using Facebook or Internet resources on a regular basis, you should be using those to keep your computer safe,” she said._____Contact Ryan Buxton at [email protected]