Hi, I’m Danielle Turner, Welcome to the Property AI Tools newsletter where I share weekly deep dives into AI topics, the latest AI tools and news, all specifically for real estate.
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Today I’ll be exploring:
My top 3 tips for securing vibe coded apps
Steps to take to protect your data before you deploy
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The beauty of vibe-coded apps is that you can turn ideas into working products without excessive iterations, drawn out scoping or massive teams of software developers. But whether it's a CRM or an automation in a box, rapidly vibe-coded apps can have massive security holes which leave you wide open to data breaches, prompt injections and hacking. Without proper security, bad actors can use simple methods to gain access to your apps through back doors that were left wide open.
If your app becomes widely adopted or even just hosts user data, one leak can erode months of trust and momentum. Before you push the next deployment, check off these security tips to keep your vibe-coded apps locked down and secure.
Lock Down Your API Keys
One of the most common mistakes is exposing sensitive credentials in your codebase. API keys should never be hardcoded or left in your frontend, they should be kept server side only, in a secure environment.
If you're using a tool like Lovable to vibe-code, make use of their built in API detection scan.
Before deploying an app:
Double check that your keys are not visible in public code, logs or repos.
If you suspect they've been leaked, rotate and change API keys regularly to be on the safe side.
Validate All Input Fields
What I mean by this is to check all fields and text boxes where data can be input by the user on your app, this includes form fields, search fields and prompt fields that users can copy, paste or type data into. Input validation ensures that only data that is safe, expected and of the correct format can be entered into the software. It ensures that malicious prompts, code and malware can't trigger adverse outcomes or extract information from your database.
If you're using AI like Claude Code, Codex to build your app, ask it to conduct 'input sanitization' to take care of these vulnerabilities.
Before deploying:
Validate and sanitize every inputs to prevent malicious injections.
Set strong rules for uploads and text fields to prevent invalid data from getting through.
Monitor logs for strange input patterns and set alerts to notify you of suspicious activity.
Enforce Rate Limiting
Vibe-coded apps can become easy targets of abuse from bots and data scrapers who scour the net for easy to access information. These bots can easily brick your website with tens of thousands of hits per minute if restrictions aren't in place.
Rate limiting controls the number of requests a user or system can make to your database via the API. A common example of rate limiting is a restriction on how many incorrect login attempts can be made by a single user. This same method can be applied to prevent mass data scraping and data access calls to your server known as DDoS attacks.
When vibe-coding prompt your AI to implement rate limiting to API routes.
Before deploying:
Make sure error messages displayed within your app don't give away technical details.
Add basic rate limiting to your app. If you're unsure of how to do this, explore using an API gateway to manage this process for you.
Round-Up
Following the above steps will ensure you capture at least 90% of the common vulnerabilities found in vibe-coded apps. Of course, it's always best practice to consult a cybersecurity expert before using live customer data but this way you can continue to develop and deploy MVPs rapidly.
Thanks for reading!
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