Practical writing on shipping AI-built apps to production: security audits, hardening, and the backend infrastructure that makes a prototype fit for real users and real data.
A practical walkthrough of what a ProductionReady.co vibe code audit actually involves: automated analysis, expert review, a written findings report by severity, and a prioritized remediation roadmap. No second development project required — just the codebase and context.
A Unit 42 investigation documented an AI-assisted attack that compressed two weeks of intrusion tradecraft into under 10 hours. The attacker used no zero-day. Every stage exploited a routine gap that production hardening closes — and the same gaps show up in the AI-built apps we audit every week. Here is each stage, how common the exposure is, and the straightforward fix.
Cursor produces the strongest AI-generated code we review, but Cursor-built apps still share a recognizable security profile. Seven production issues recur across every Cursor project we audit — from cosmetic authentication to missing rate limiting — regardless of builder experience.
AI-built apps look finished long before they're production-ready. The gap between a working demo and a system real users can depend on is almost never the features — it's authentication, secrets, input validation, and the production controls AI tools don't generate on their own.
