FYI.

This story is over 5 years old.

Tech

A Hacker Stole the Personal Information of 95,000 McDonald’s Job Applicants

Maybe the Hamburglar?
Flickr/hiropiro.

An unknown hacker stole the personal information of nearly 100,000 McDonald's Canada job applicants by breaching the fast food chain's jobs website, the company confirmed on Friday afternoon.

The hack affected anybody who applied for a job online at McDonald's in Canada between March of 2014 and March of 2017. The information that was compromised included names, email addresses, phone numbers, home addresses, and previous work history, as well as the knowledge that the victims applied to work at McDonald's at one time.

Advertisement

"Importantly, our application forms do not request highly sensitive personal information such as social insurance numbers, banking information or health information," a McDonald's Canada spokesperson sent in an emailed statement.

The company has set up a website as a resource for people wondering if they've been affected by the hack. Unsurprisingly, the site encourages people looking for a job at the chain to apply in person.

McDonald's Canada shut down its jobs website after learning about the hack, and the site will remain offline until an investigation is completed. According to the company, McDonald's Canada will let victims know their information was compromised by mail, but phone or email if no mailing address was provided.

McDonald's seems to be a bit of a target for hackers lately, since its corporate Twitter account was allegedly compromised earlier in March and posted a tweet calling US President Donald Trump a "disgusting excuse of [ sic] a president."

It's enough to make you grimace.

Subscribe to pluspluspodcast, Motherboard's new show about the people and machines that are building our future.

Update: This article was updated with additional information from McDonald's Canada.