Pulling up to the drive-thru might feel routine, but what if someone else was listening in? That’s the unsettling reality uncovered by ethical hackers who found “catastrophic” security vulnerabilities in the platforms of three major restaurant chains in the United States. Their findings reveal how a seemingly harmless drive-thru order could expose personal information and background chatter to those with malicious intent. Read on to learn how these gaps were discovered, what information was at risk, and what the concerned fast-food giants did to fix it.
System security gaps left RBI restaurants vulnerable to attack
Two white-hat hackers claimed to have discovered glaring weaknesses in the digital platforms run by Restaurant Brands International (RBI), the parent company of some of the world’s biggest fast-food names, including Burger King, Tim Hortons, and Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen.
When the ethical hacker dug into RBI’s systems, they were shocked by what they found. In a blog post—later taken down but preserved in archives—they didn’t hold back, writing:
“Their security was about as solid as a paper Whopper wrapper in the rain. We stumbled upon vulnerabilities so catastrophic that we could access every single store in their global empire. From a Burger King in Times Square to that lonely Tim Hortons where Bugs Bunny shoulda taken a left turn at Albuquerque. Oh, and did we mention we could listen to your actual drive-thru conversations? Yeah, that happened too.”
According to the pair, the trouble started with the RBI’s use of AWS Cognito, a service that manages user authentication. The company reportedly left self-registration open, allowing anyone to create accounts rather than limiting access to authorized employees. By failing to restrict signups, RBI unintentionally expanded its attack surface, exposing sensitive systems that should have been tightly controlled by administrators.
And while that loophole was serious enough, the hackers say it didn’t end there. They claim to have discovered another signup endpoint that was even more careless—one that bypassed email verification altogether and sent passwords in plain text, handing them effortless access to RBI’s platforms.
When cyber weaknesses put global restaurant brands in danger
The hackers say their findings went far beyond minor glitches, pointing to deep cracks in the digital foundations of three major brand domains: bk.com, popeyes.com, and timhortons.com. With these platforms wide open, attackers could have exploited the weaknesses to:
- Tap into voice recordings of drive-thru orders
- Add, remove, or manage entire franchise locations
- View and alter employee accounts
- Access sensitive store analytics and financial data
- Upload malicious files or push fake notifications to store systems
- Abuse a device-ordering system whose password was hardcoded directly into the HTML
While each vulnerability alone was troubling, together they represented a full-spectrum breach of RBI’s restaurant operations, from corporate oversight down to individual customer interactions.
One of the most alarming discoveries involved raw drive-thru audio recordings. These files captured real customers placing orders, often peppered with background conversations, music from car radios, and snippets of personally identifiable information. Such recordings could easily be weaponized: background chatter might expose names, addresses, phone numbers, or even credit card details read aloud. Beyond identity theft, the availability of raw audio raised chilling privacy concerns; customers had no idea their casual conversations could be intercepted.
Even more unsettling, the researchers say these recordings weren’t just being stored. They were fed into an AI system tasked with monitoring operational performance. On the surface, these insights may have been intended for business optimization. But in the wrong hands, this dataset could enable detailed profiling of customers and employees alike. Attackers could exploit sentiment analysis to identify dissatisfied customers, manipulate data to disrupt store operations, or even spread disinformation by injecting fake metrics and notifications into the system.
Patched in a day, but questions remain
If there’s one bright spot in this story, it’s speed. According to the hackers, all of the vulnerabilities they uncovered in a single day were patched by RBI within that same 24-hour window. But while the holes were closed, the response raised its own concerns.
RBI reportedly made no public acknowledgment of the researchers’ work, nor did it issue any statement addressing the scale of the vulnerabilities. In the cybersecurity community, this lack of transparency can be troubling. Ethical hackers typically disclose flaws in good faith, expecting at minimum a nod of recognition and, in best practices, open communication about the fixes implemented.
By choosing silence, RBI may have missed an opportunity to reassure customers and franchisees that their data and systems are being taken seriously. Without that accountability, the company leaves lingering questions: If vulnerabilities this severe can slip through unnoticed, what other weaknesses might still be hiding in its global network of more than 32,000 restaurants?
Source: Malwarebytes