AI Can Build Your App in a Day. Here's How to Check It Isn't Leaking Secrets

Not long ago, building a website with a login page and a database took a team and a few weeks. Now you can describe what you want to an AI assistant, accept its suggestions, press deploy, and have something live by dinner.

That is genuinely wonderful, especially for founders, designers and small teams who couldn't afford a developer before.

But here's the thing nobody mentions in the demo video. A site that works and a site that is safe for real customers are two different things. And the distance between them is exactly where AI-built projects tend to get into trouble.

Why this keeps happening

AI assistants are trained to give you something that runs and looks right. Security is invisible when it's done well. Nobody notices a missing lock until someone walks in. So it's the first thing to get skipped.

It's also not that the code is somehow worse. It's that building so quickly removes the moment where a careful person would stop and ask, "wait, what does this expose?" If you didn't write the code yourself, you may not even know what questions to ask.

Here are the mistakes we see again and again.

Missing security headers. These are small instructions your server sends to the browser, such as "only load scripts from my own site." Without them, the site works fine but is easier to trick.

Wide-open CORS. To fix an annoying error, someone pastes in a setting that lets any website talk to your API. It gets forgotten and stays forever.

Files you never meant to share. A .env file with your passwords, a .git folder, an old backup, an admin page. If a stranger can guess the address, they can read it.

Weak cookie settings. Login cookies that aren't marked Secure, HttpOnly or SameSite are easier to steal.

Secrets in the front end. An API key placed in the browser code because "it was easier." Anyone can open the developer tools and copy it.

No limit on login attempts. An attacker can try thousands of passwords without being slowed down.

Trusting the browser too much. Checking who is allowed to do what only in the page, instead of on the server.

None of these is exotic. Automated scanners find them all the time, and the people who scan every new website for them aren't waiting for you to finish launching.

What a website audit does

Our Website Audit goes through a site the way a cautious visitor would, and tells you what it finds. In one run it checks:

• the security headers and HTTPS setup,
• common files and paths that are often left behind,
• CORS and cookie settings,
• pages that mix secure and insecure content,
• speed, accessibility and search-engine health, using Lighthouse scores,
• and signs that the site was put together by an AI generator.

Every finding comes with a severity and a suggested fix, so the report reads like a to-do list instead of a lecture. Your first audit is free, and you can run it from the homepage without even signing up.

When you want to go deeper

Before a big launch, the Deep Audit looks at more of your site. It crawls several pages, checks how it behaves on different screen sizes, looks for exposed data, and can review a GitHub repository. For domains you've proven you own, it can also run live tests, like trying repeated logins to see if anything slows an attacker down. We only allow those tests on verified domains so nobody can point them at a site that isn't theirs.

A simple routine you can copy

1. Run an audit before you launch, and again after any big change.
2. Fix the serious things first. Exposed files and missing headers are usually quick wins.
3. Run it again to confirm the score went up.
4. Add it to your release checklist, right next to your tests.
5. Still ask a person to look at the sensitive parts, like logins, payments and anything involving personal data. Automated scans catch the common mistakes, not every mistake.

A bonus: it helps your SEO too

The same audit scores your search-engine readiness and page speed. Missing page titles, slow loading and accessibility problems hurt your ranking just like missing headers hurt your security. One scan covers both.

Give it a go

Run a free audit on your own site and fix the top three things it finds. If you'd like to automate it, it's also available through the API. And if the report looks overwhelming, don't worry. Our next article, How to read a website audit report, explains it line by line.