A tech leader has warned that the proliferation of AI-generated code is creating a security time bomb that could trigger a global cyber incident within months, and the property management industry could be caught in the crosshairs.
Blair Dods, head of technology and AI at Managed, issued the dire warning on The Property Management Excellence (PMX) Podcast with REB director and Managed co-founder Alex Whitlock, adding that the rapid adoption of AI coding tools without adequate security oversight has created a precarious situation for businesses across all sectors.
He provided some unsettling figures to put the issue into perspective, including that 50 per cent of the code on GitHub is now AI-generated, while 46 per cent of that code has security vulnerabilities.
“You do the maths on that. It’s absolutely terrifying,” he said.
Pointing to a compounding trend, Dods said the volume and severity of security incidents have been accelerating, with the number of major breaches roughly doubling month on month.
“There were three in March, and then six, and then 15,” he said.
“It’s almost doubling every month, these major things that are happening.”
Dods predicts the industry is heading for a catastrophic event driven by a vibe-coded package – software built through AI prompts rather than traditional development – that introduces a vulnerability capable of spreading through millions of platforms.
“I think there’s going to be a worldwide cyber incident. I don't want to sound like an alarmist, but I guarantee in the next six to eight months it will happen,” he said.
“Some vibe coder will sneak something in that infects millions of platforms and apps.”
The warning carries particular weight for property management agencies, which handle significant volumes of personally identifiable information, financial data, and tenancy records. Dods said most agencies have employees who paste sensitive data into public AI tools daily without considering the compliance implications.
“It’s illegal. People just don't really think about that.”
Dods urged principals to invest in security education and treat AI-generated code with the same scrutiny as any other third-party dependency.
“People are not taking this seriously enough. You have to really educate at the security level as well.”
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