Researchers say a "123456" password exposed McDonald's hiring-bot records. Paradox disputes how many.

July 2025 — Two security researchers got into the back end of McDonald's AI hiring chatbot with a password of "123456." Here's what each side says was exposed, what it cost, and what went wrong.

Cost and outcome (as of July 11, 2025)

• Records reachable, per the researchers: "more than 64 million applicants," inferred from sequential applicant ID numbers (theirs was about 64,185,742), not a count of records viewed. (Ian Carroll)
• Records viewed, per Paradox: seven chat records pulled, five with U.S. candidate information. Paradox says no one but the researchers accessed them. (Paradox)
• Time to fix: the researchers say they disclosed at 5:46 p.m. ET on June 30 and the credentials stopped working at 7:31 p.m.; Paradox confirmed the issues resolved on July 1. Paradox says it resolved the issue "within a few hours of being notified." (Ian Carroll; Paradox)
• Fines, legal costs and contract changes: not disclosed.

What happened

McHire is "used by 90% of McDonald's franchisees," according to Ian Carroll, who did the work with researcher Sam Curry. Applicants chat with Olivia, give contact details and take a personality test.

On a login page for Paradox staff, Carroll writes, they tried "123456" as both username and password and "were surprised to see we were immediately logged in." That opened a test restaurant. Changing an applicant ID number in an internal API call (an insecure direct object reference) then showed other applicants' chats and contact details. The ID was "a number somewhere above 64 million," Wired reported.

The two accounts

The researchers' account. "Together they allowed us and anyone else with a McHire account and access to any inbox to retrieve the personal data of more than 64 million applicants," Carroll writes. The exposed data included names, email addresses, phone numbers and addresses. Wired reached two applicants through the exposed contact details, and both confirmed they had applied at McDonald's. "Had someone exploited this, the phishing risk would have actually been massive," Curry told Wired.

Paradox's account. "At no point was candidate information leaked online or made publicly available," Paradox says. "Five candidates in total had information viewed because of this incident, and it was ONLY viewed by the security researchers." Paradox says the researchers "may have briefly had access to the system containing all chat interactions (NOT job applications)." It says the majority of those chat records "were not tied to a candidate in the system and did not include candidate personal information." The test account "had not been logged into since 2019 and frankly, should have been decommissioned." It says the incident "impacted one organization" and that no Social Security numbers were involved.

Editor's note: The two accounts don't measure the same thing. The researchers describe what the flaws made reachable, and Paradox describes what was actually viewed. Paradox's own statement uses "chat interactions," not "job applications." We have not seen an independent count of how many records held personal data.

What the companies said

"We do not take this matter lightly, even though it was resolved swiftly and effectively," Paradox chief legal officer Stephanie King told Wired. "We own this." McDonald's told Wired: "We're disappointed by this unacceptable vulnerability from a third-party provider, Paradox.ai." McDonald's said the issue was resolved the same day it was reported. Paradox says it is launching a security contact address and a bug bounty program. "We take responsibility for this issue. Full stop," it says.

What went wrong

• A default password on a live admin login. The test account had sat unused for years.
• No limit on lookups. The API returned any applicant's record when given a different ID.
• No reporting channel. Carroll wrote that "no disclosure contacts were publicly available," so they emailed staff directly.
• What we don't know yet: how many of the reachable records held personal data, and whether anyone else had used the test account.

Our follow-up question for Paradox

How many McHire records held applicants' personal data when the flaws were open, and how did Paradox confirm that no one but the researchers used the test account?

Later developments (added Oct. 2026)

• On Aug. 21, 2025, Workday disclosed an agreement to acquire Paradox. (Workday 8-K) Workday announced on Oct. 1, 2025 that it had completed the acquisition. (Workday) Its quarterly report says the deal closed in September 2025. (Workday 10-Q)
• As of Oct. 25, 2026, we found no regulator action tied to the McHire flaws.

Sources

1. Ian Carroll, “Would you like an IDOR with that? Leaking 64 million McDonald's job applications,” July 9, 2025. ian.sh
2. Paradox, “Responsible security update,” updated July 9, 2025. paradox.ai
3. Andy Greenberg, Wired, “McDonald's AI Hiring Bot Exposed Millions of Applicants' Data to Hackers Who Tried the Password '123456,'” July 9, 2025. wired.com
4. Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai, TechCrunch, “AI chatbot's simple '123456' password risked exposing personal data of millions of McDonald's job applicants,” July 11, 2025. techcrunch.com
5. Paradox, release on Adam Godson's appointment as CEO, March 11, 2024 (company background). paradox.ai
6. Workday, Form 8-K, Aug. 21, 2025. sec.gov
7. Workday, “Workday Completes Acquisition of Paradox,” Oct. 1, 2025. investor.workday.com
8. Workday, Form 10-Q for the quarter ended Oct. 31, 2025, filed Nov. 26, 2025. sec.gov

Disclosure: [not in copy] Editor placeholder

© 2026 Real World Wire. Written October 25, 2026.