AI's Hidden Security Debt
Aug 18, 2025
AI-powered coding assistants now play a central role in modern software development. Developers use them to speed up tasks, reduce boilerplate snippets, and automate routine code generation. But with that speed comes a dangerous trade-off. The tools designed to accelerate innovation are degrading application security by embedding subtle yet serious vulnerabilities in software. Nearly half of the code snippets generated by five AI models contained bugs that attackers could exploit, a study showed. A second study confirmed the risk, with nearly one-third of Python snippets and a quarter of JavaScript snippets produced by GitHub Copilot having security flaws . The problem goes beyond flawed output. AI tools instill a false sense of confidence. Developers using AI assistance not only wrote significantly less secure code than those who worked unaided, but they also believed their insecure code was safe, a clear sign of automation bias. The Dangerous Simplicity of AI-...
