Brands
McDonald’s warns its customers that ‘Big Mac’ is one of the worst passwords
NETHERLANDS: Forget fries with that. Your password could be just as easy to steal. On Change Your Password Day (February 1), McDonald’s Netherlands pulled no punches, revealing that ‘bigmac’ has appeared in 110,922 data breaches.
The fast-food chain leaned on “Have I Been Pwned” data to highlight a worrying habit. Consumers pick predictably weak passwords. It is not just pets, birthdays, or “123456.” Fans of familiar brands and favourite menu items are making hackers’ lives far too easy. ‘Frenchfries’ pops up 34,407 times, ‘happymeal’ 17,269 times, and ‘mcnuggets’ 2,219 times, with countless variations adding numbers or symbols.
Cybersecurity experts have long warned against lazy passwords. Yet the pattern persists, exposing the yawning gap between knowing better and actually doing better online. By turning its own brand ubiquity into a teaching moment, McDonald’s shows that cultural icons can succeed where generic campaigns fail.
The message is simple. If your password tastes like a menu, it is time to change it. Pick something unique, complex, and utterly un-McDonald’s. Hackers will not be laughing or ordering this time.
