McDonald's recruiting chatbot: the password "123456" opened the records of tens of millions of applicants

What happened?

On 30/6/2025, security researchers Ian Carroll and Sam Curry notified Paradox.ai and McDonald's of two flaws in McHire, the recruiting platform that many McDonald's franchisees in the US use with the Olivia chatbot:

the administration interface accepted the default credentials 123456 / 123456 on a test account;
an insecure direct object reference (IDOR) flaw on an internal API allowed reading the conversations and contact information of other applicants simply by changing the ID number.

According to the researchers, the two flaws combined allowed access to data on more than 64 million applicants: names, emails, phone numbers, conversation content and personality-assessment results. Paradox.ai said this was an old test account with a password that had not been updated, that it locked the account and patched the flaw the same day, and that only the researchers accessed that account. McDonald's called the vulnerability "unacceptable" and placed responsibility on its third-party provider.

Why is it serious?

Basic flaws (a default password, no multi-factor authentication) sat in a system processing data at enormous scale.
The researchers had to email "random people" because the vendor had no point of contact for receiving vulnerability reports.
The brand selling to customers bears the reputational consequences even though the flaw lay with the vendor.

Lessons for enterprises

Assess AI vendors thoroughly before handing over data: multi-factor authentication, test-account management and periodic security testing.
Share only as much data as is necessary for the purpose of cooperation; delete test accounts and test data.
Set out responsibilities in the contract with data processors, including incident notification: in Vietnam, enterprises must notify personal data incidents within 72 hours under Decree 356/2025/ND-CP.

A data-centric approach

Reducing the data handed to third parties and controlling how they use it are the two key points. Protecting the file itself lets enterprises limit rights, set expiry and revoke when cooperation ends. For personal data, try the Personal Data Protection (PDP) self-assessment to see which points to review in relationships with third parties.

Reference sources

The content is compiled from public sources at the time of writing, for reference and lessons learned only. It is not a legal assessment of any organization named. Please check the original sources when citing.