The Quiet Security Crisis in Vibe-Coded Apps

Last year, a solo founder got a $47,000 AWS bill overnight. They had built a web app using an AI coding tool — no prior programming experience. The app worked. Users loved it. Then a bot found the API key hardcoded in their JavaScript file, spun up GPU instances, and mined crypto until the credit limit hit. This is not an edge case anymore. It is the new normal. With tools like Cursor, Bolt, Lovable, and Replit AI making it trivially easy to build full-stack apps without knowing how to code, we are entering a phase where millions of apps will be deployed by people who have never heard of OWASP. The apps will work. The security will be absent. The 5 Most Common Security Holes in AI-Generated Code 1. Hardcoded API Keys AI coding tools frequently put credentials directly in source files. The AI is optimizing for "make it work", not "make it safe". A .env file is an extra step the AI may skip. What it looks like: const stripe = new Stripe ( " sk_live_abc123... " ); const openai = new OpenA