If you’ve ever panic-ordered DoorDash during a 12-hour production day, you know the drill: hit “order,” whisper a prayer, and hope the driver doesn’t get lost behind your loading dock again.
Well… turns out DoorDash had a very different kind of problem recently.
In November 2025, DoorDash announced that they were hit with a major data breach that exposed customer names, emails, phone numbers, and delivery addresses. Basically, everything a hacker needs to know about your lunchtime habits and the fact that you order way too many burritos.
But here’s why this matters for manufacturers:
The breach didn’t happen because DoorDash had weak firewalls or outdated tech.
It happened because someone fell for a social engineering scam.
Yep.
One crafty message → one distracted click → boom. Corporate nachos everywhere.
Attackers didn’t brute-force their way in, Mission-Impossible style.
They just tricked someone.
Manufacturing floors are full of:
People moving fast
Devices left logged in
Emails skimmed on the way to the break room
A perfect storm for a “click here or else” scam.
Manufacturers often say:
“Why would anyone target us? We make stuff.”
Fun fact:
Hackers LOVE companies with:
✔ outdated equipment
✔ small IT teams
✔ lots of vendors
✔ tons of emails and shipments
Sound familiar?
DoorDash learned this the hard way.
One person clicking a bad link can cost the whole company.
Train your people the same way you train them not to stick a screwdriver into a running machine.
✓ Turn on Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA)
If your employees groan, tell them:
“MFA is 5 seconds of pain or 5 weeks of ransomware. Pick one.”
✓ Run quarterly phishing simulations
Make it fun.
Give out prizes for:
Most suspicious employee
Fastest “report phishing” reflexes
“No, Karen, the UPS guy is NOT emailing you from a Gmail account” award
✓ Patch everything
If your CNC machine is running Windows 7…
It’s time.
✓ Train EVERY role — even forklift drivers
Cybercriminals don’t care about job titles.
If a billion-dollar tech company delivering tacos can get hacked with a simple social engineering trick…..your manufacturing shop full of vendors, shipping notices, and automated emails is absolutely on the menu too.
Stay sharp. Protect your people. And maybe pack your lunch once in a while.