MySpace devotee Kary Rogers was expecting to see a gut-busting video when a friend from the popular online hangout messaged him a link.

First, though, he was directed to a page where he was supposed to re-enter his password.

Rogers realized that someone was trying to steal his information, and he didn’t take the bait.

At best, he would be spammed with junk e-mails; worse, the cyber thief might steal his real-life identity.

“I immediately went back and changed my password,” said Rogers, 29, a network analyst for Mississippi State University in Starkville, Mississippi.

MySpace bills itself as a “place for friends.”

Increasingly, it is also a place for unfriendly attacks from digital miscreants on the prowl.

They lure users to sexually explicit sites, clog mailboxes with spam messages, and exploit users’ trust when speaking to “friends” to obtain passwords that could lead to identity theft.