Burger King has invoked the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) to compel the removal of a security researcher’s blog post that exposed critical vulnerabilities in its new drive-thru “Assistant” system.
Ethical hacker BobDaHacker published an in-depth report demonstrating how attackers could bypass authentication, eavesdrop on customer orders, and access sensitive employee records.
Although Restaurant Brands International (RBI) patched the flaws within hours of being notified, the content was taken offline under a DMCA notice alleging trademark misuse and promotion of illegal activity.
Security Research and Responsible Disclosure
On Saturday, BobDaHacker released a blog post titled “We Hacked Burger King,” which detailed lapses in the still-in-beta Assistant platform built on AWS Cognito.
The researcher discovered that user registration controls had not been disabled, allowing anyone to sign up for an account and receive a plaintext password via email.
With that account, BobDaHacker demonstrated full data access across all stores using the system, including the ability to view and modify employee profiles and internal equipment orders.
Moreover, the researcher uncovered a hidden GraphQL mutation that empowered any user to elevate their privileges to administrator.
This oversight granted full control of store listings, notifications, and system settings. Once these issues were reported to RBI—just one hour after discovery—the company issued patches the same day.
BobDaHacker confirms that no customer data was retained and that responsible disclosure protocols were strictly followed throughout the process.
Content Takedown and DMCA Notice
Despite the rapid remediation, threat intelligence firm Cyble issued a DMCA takedown notice, alleging unauthorized use of the “Burger King” trademark and claiming that the blog post could mislead the public into believing it was endorsed by the brand.
The notice further argued that the publication of these findings harmed Burger King’s goodwill.
Both RBI and Cyble declined to comment on the validity of the complaint or the decision to pursue copyright enforcement rather than a standard vulnerability disclosure pathway.
BobDaHacker’s report had been live for less than 48 hours before the takedown.
An archived copy of the article remains accessible online, and numerous cybersecurity professionals have reposted the findings on social media, illustrating the Streisand effect.
Rather than suppressing the security issue, the DMCA notice has drawn greater attention to the weaknesses encountered in Burger King’s drive-thru AI system.
According to the archived report, the Assistant platform recorded drive-thru conversations and processed them through an AI engine to score employee friendliness, wait times, and upsell performance.
Attackers could replay audio clips to eavesdrop on customer orders, and a hardcoded password embedded in the client-side HTML of an equipment ordering portal allowed unauthorized access to franchisee starter kit requests
A Burger King spokesperson told Information Security Media Group that the test platform does not store customer data long-term, retaining only aggregated metrics for a few weeks.
They emphasized that the program aims to enhance the guest experience by verifying order accuracy and monitoring equipment status.
As major restaurant chains increasingly deploy AI-driven voice assistants, this incident underscores the critical need to secure authentication flows and protect sensitive audio data, particularly during beta trials.
Moving forward, organizations must balance innovation with robust security measures to safeguard customer trust and prevent exploitation of emerging technologies.
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