I Hacked Monster Energy and You Won't Believe What They Think You Look Like

Summary

The Energy Drink Giant That Forgot to Lock Its Doors As a hacker who likes energy drinks, I decided to check out Monster Energy's corporate infrastructure. What I found was completely exposed and making terrible security decisions. Monster University: Where Security Goes to Die Monster University (mu.monsterenergy.com) is where Monster employees go to learn about their brand. It's also where I learned that changing /login to /register in the URL is apparently Monster's idea of "authentication." The registration form appeared but wouldn't submit. So I went straight to the JavaScript to find the actual API endpoint. The API helpfully told me exactly which fields were missing from my registration attempt. Once I called the API directly with the right fields, boom, I was in. Full access to Monster University, complete with all their training materials, including this absolute masterpiece about their target demographic: This Is What Monster Thinks You Look Like I'm not kidding. This is from their actual brand training guide. According to Monster Energy, their "Core Brand Family Consumer" is: "Monster Green shoppers are likely younger (Gen-Z/Millennial/Gen-X) male, lower income & Caucasian (skews Hispanic)." And they included this photo of five people in Monster gear looking like they're being held hostage in a marketing photoshoot. This is literally what Monster corporate thinks their average customer looks like. I can't make this stuff up. The Irony: Their Own Cybersecurity Training The best part? Monster University has a cybersecurity course they bought from a third-party vendor. The same platform with no authentication has lessons teaching employees about phishing and basic security: The irony of hosting a cybersecurity course about phishing on a completely unsecured platform is just chef's kiss. Meanwhile in Monster Corporate: Walmart Zoom Calls and "ULTIMATE BEAST" Badges While exploring Monster University, I found some gems about their corporate culture. You can vi...