The 4 most common security risks when vibe coding your app

Needless to say, vibe coding involves sacrificing some quality for speed. But when it comes to security, quality still requires a special level of prioritization. A reckless attitude toward security issues often leads to catastrophic consequences: data leaks, account takeovers, financial losses, and damage to trust beyond repair.

So, what are the most common risks your vibe coded app might face?

#1: Exposing API and secret keys in the code

When moving fast, it’s tempting to paste a key straight into a config file. Or even into a prompt-generated frontend component. This is especially true when you just want to test if things are working, and plan to clean up later. But often, that cleanup never happens–or the key slips into version control without anyone noticing.

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This is dangerous because a leaked secret is basically a master key: anyone who gets it can access the service with the same privileges as the original owner. Attackers can burn your API quota, run up costs, and access whatever that key has access to—often without you noticing until damage is done.

To prevent this, only keep secrets on the server and inject them at runtime: store them in your deployment platform’s secret store (or CI/CD secrets), load them via environment variables (store them in the .env files that are explicitly ignored), and have the frontend call your backend endpoint that proxies requests to third-party APIs.

You can use some tools to automate detection of leaked API keys. For instance, with public repositories or organization-owned repositories, GitHub allows users to enable a secret scanning feature that scans commits in repositories for known types of secrets and alerts repository administrators upon their detection.

Or you can use an open-source tool like TruffleHog and set a pre-commit hook. This will mean that developers can prevent leaked keys in the first place by catching them before the code is committed or pushed.

If a key does get exposed, assume it’s permanently compromised. (Especially because it can live on in Git history and caches). Rotate it immediately and replace it everywhere.

#2: Weak authentication systems

Weak authentication systems are one of the biggest risks when using vibe coding tools, since every auth setup has its own requirements and depends heavily on the business context.

That context drives a lot of the implementation details, so a generic prompt like “build an app with auth” without any important details can easily produce a system that looks correct but is unsafe.

Vibe coding tools tend to oversimplify auth because they optimize for a fast “login works” demo, and they often miss small but crucial parts that keep auth safe, like these:

• How permissions are modeled
• Where enforcement happens
• How state changes should invalidate access

There are some mistakes that can lead to devastating consequences.

• Trusting role checks coming from the client
• Hiding controls in the UI instead of enforcing permission checks on every API endpoint
• Building and testing mostly the admin “main flow” while regular-user flows and edge cases get little coverage. For example, a missed check on an admin-only endpoint that lets a regular user export everyone’s private data.

Always make sure you’ve got the auth architecture of your system properly implemented up front: define roles and permissions, ownership rules, and how access changes are enforced across all endpoints, and only then add the code for it, manually or using vibe-coding tools.

In a good setup, the system is always reviewed by an experienced human engineer, so as auth grows more complex there’s a shared understanding of context and design, and the most dangerous mistakes in auth systems from vibe coding tools get caught early.

#3: Insecure dependencies

This is common with vibe coding because the quickest way to ship a feature is “add this nice component library”, or “add this small and useful utility” package. Thus, the dependency tree grows fast (as there are usually also many transitive deps you didn’t choose directly). And, over time, you end up with a huge list of dependencies.

A lot of dependencies can not only increase your bundle size and lead to worse performance, this can also be a security risk because one hijacked (or just a vulnerable package) can give attackers a foothold inside your build or runtime.

To prevent this problem: keep dependencies minimal, always review what you add (especially small ‘utility’ packages–first check how many users download them), and enforce a minimum release age for installing packages so you don’t auto-install something published 10 minutes ago.

Also, enable Dependabot for your project; it’s a native GitHub tool that will send you a notification when one of your dependencies has a vulnerability. After doing that, don’t forget to regularly check the alerts on the Security GitHub tab!

#4: Insecure user inputs or file uploads

When vibe coding, it’s common to treat inputs and uploads as “just form data” and then wire them up quickly so the feature works. Proper server-side validation and safe handling takes time, so it often gets skipped.

Of course, that’s dangerous because inputs can become injection or XSS vectors, and uploads can be abused to deliver malicious content.

For example, an attacker can paste malicious <script /> into an input field so it runs in other users’ browsers, or upload a profile image that’s actually an SVG file with an embedded script that executes when you display it. They could also upload an intentionally huge file to fill storage and burn bandwidth.

Prevent this issue: assume anything “client-side validated” is untrusted: enforce strict validation against a schema, and use parameterized queries.

For uploads, keep it simple with a few hard rules: only accept specific formats (e.g., JPG/PNG for avatars), set a strict size limit (e.g., 5–10 MB), and verify the file’s real type by inspecting its content.

That covers the most common security risks in vibe-coded apps. Dealing with these can close up an otherwise wide-open field for attackers.

Finally, remember: use AI tools carefully! Some automated tools can significantly improve your workflow, sure–but don’t skip human review. Even more importantly, implement sound security-minded architecture (for instance, using the practices above) to help prevent entire classes of vulnerabilities in the first place. After all, responsibility for app security is still on us humans, not on our robots.