Breach, Compliance Management, Threat Management, Data Security, Privacy

Hacker compromises nearly 100k McDonald’s Canada job applications

The McDonald's Canada career website has suffered a data breach that compromised about 95,000 restaurant job applications, the fast-food giant acknowledged on Friday in a company statement.

Job-seekers who applied at a McDonald's Canada restaurant between March 2014 and March 2017 were impacted by the breach, which exposed applicants' names, addresses, email addresses, phone numbers and employment backgrounds, as well as what McDonald's described as "other standard application information."

The forms did not ask for any sensitive personal or financial information, added McDonald's, noting that the company is currently unaware of anyone misusing the breached data.

“When we learned of this privacy breach we immediately shut down the site and launched an investigation," reads the company statement. The careers webpage will remain shut down until the investigation is complete and appropriate measures are taken to ensure that this type of security breach does not happen again.”

According to McDonald's, all affected applicants will be notified by mail, email or telephone.

Bradley Barth

As director of community content at CyberRisk Alliance, Bradley Barth develops content for SC Media online conferences and events, as well as video/multimedia projects. For nearly six years, he wrote and reported for SC Media as deputy editor and, before that, senior reporter. He was previously a program executive with the tech-focused PR firm Voxus. Past journalistic experience includes stints as business editor at Executive Technology, a staff writer at New York Sportscene and a freelance journalist covering travel and entertainment. In his spare time, Bradley also writes screenplays.

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