The Reality of Vibe Coding: AI Agents and the Security Debt Crisis

"Vibe coding" with AI agents prioritizes development speed over safety, leading to significant security vulnerabilities in applications. AI coding tools often introduce risks because they are optimized to make code run, not to make it secure, sometimes removing safety checks or exposing secrets to resolve errors. Common security flaws resulting from this practice include leaked API keys, public database access, and Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) vulnerabilities. To use these AI tools safely, developers should employ better prompting strategies, conduct rigorous code reviews, and implement automated security guardrails.