So, I get asked fairly regularly for a starting point on this stuff, and up until now I've just been sending people individual links as they come up in conversation. This is my attempt to put all of it in one place, because most of what gets written in the security space is aimed at enterprise teams with dedicated security staff, not a solo founder shipping an AI product who just wants to understand what they're actually dealing with.

That said, everything below seeks to be non technical enough to be useful to somebody without requiring in depth security knowledge, and would be a great resource to bookmark and keep on hand while building out applications.

The OWASP LLM Top 10

If there is one document worth reading before you ship anything with an AI component, this is it. OWASP has been producing security guidance for developers since 2001, and their Web Application Top 10 became the industry standard for traditional web security. In 2023 they released a version specifically for LLM applications, updated again in 2025, covering the ten most critical vulnerabilities specific to AI powered products.

Prompt injection sits at number one on that list, which on its own should tell you something. It doesn't need to be read cover to cover, but even skimming the names and one line descriptions should give you a meaningful vocabulary for understanding what your product is and isn't exposed to.

Also worth noting: they also released an Agentic Applications Top 10 in 2026 specifically for founders building with autonomous AI agents. If this is applicable to your build, I would definitely give that document a further look into as well.

Georgia Tech's Vibe Security Radar

Launched in May 2025 out of Georgia Tech's Systems Software and Security Lab, the Vibe Security Radar does something nobody else was doing at the time: actually tracking CVEs directly traceable to AI generated code. Researcher Hanqing Zhao's reasoning for building it was straightforward: "everyone is saying AI code is insecure but nobody is actually tracking it."

In March 2026 alone, it tracked 35 confirmed CVEs directly caused by AI coding tools, up from 6 in January of the same year. The researchers estimate the true count is around five to ten times higher (since many AI tool traces get stripped by authors before code is published).

This is a tool I would definitely say is worth the bookmark, and checking against your builds periodically rather than just reading once.

Relevant reading from HollowByte: 5 things your AI-generated code will never tell you

The CSA AI Safety Initiative

The Cloud Security Alliance has been producing some of the most practically useful research on AI security in 2025 and 2026. What stands out compared to a lot of security writing is that it leads with data rather than theory, and the recommendations are actually actionable rather than a generic "implement security best practices" conclusion.

Their research note on AI generated code vulnerability trends from early 2026 is worth reading if you want the full empirical picture. Free to access, no registration required.

HaveIBeenPwned

Less of a reading resource, more of something you should check right now if you haven't already. Troy Hunt's HIBP database tracks credentials exposed in known data breaches and lets you check whether any email address has shown up in one. Completely free, takes 30 seconds, and given that IBM's 2026 X-Force report found over 300,000 ChatGPT credentials in infostealer malware last year, the idea that your accounts are definitely safe is worth verifying rather than assuming.

Run your own email (or co-founders' emails or any email tied to your domain where applicable). It's an easy thing to check up on, and beats the alternative of finding out the hard way.

SecurityHeaders.com

Paste your live site URL into SecurityHeaders.com and get back a graded report on your security headers in about ten seconds. Zero technical knowledge required to interpret it. You're looking for a grade of B or above. Anything below means your app is missing guardrails that prevent specific classes of exploit including clickjacking, content injection, and cross site scripting.

From audits run by HollowByte, missing X-Frame-Options and CSP headers are the two most consistently overlooked things in AI-generated output. If your grade comes back with either of those flagged, the fix is typically a one line patch in your config.

Relevant reading: The 30 minute security checklist

SSL Labs

Same idea applies, this time specifically for your SSL configuration. Paste your domain into SSL Labs and wait a couple of minutes. You're looking for a grade of A. Anything below on a custom domain is worth investigating, since misconfigured SSL means data traveling between your users and your server is potentially readable in transit, including login credentials and session tokens.

CVE.org and the National Vulnerability Database

You don't need to read these regularly, but knowing they exist is useful. CVE is the public database where security researchers formally document discovered vulnerabilities in software. If you want to check whether a specific library, framework, or platform you're using has known vulnerabilities, searching by tool name here gives you the authoritative picture. The NVD adds severity scoring and additional context on top. Both of these tools are free, and publicly available.

Want to know where your app stands?

The resources above give you a solid foundation for understanding the landscape. If you want someone to go through your actual build with adversarial intent before you launch, that's what HollowByte seeks to do.