Former Disney Employee Admits to Hacking Menu System to Change Allergy Information


A former Disney employee fired for misconduct has admitted to hacking into the company’s menu creation software to change key details, including food allergy information that could put customers at risk resort restaurants.

A complaint brought by the Justice Department last year alleged that a man named Michael Scheuer committed various computer crimes after being fired from the company he worked for. The affected company was not named in the complaint, although further reporting revealed that the company was Disney. Now, it has been reported that Scheuer, who previously worked as the company’s “Menu Production Manager”, has reportedly admitted to the computer crimes in question as part of a plea deal.

Watch the Court reported that Scheuer agreed to pay Disney restitution as well as a fine to the government. Scheuer’s attorney, David Haas, reportedly said: “Mr. Scheuer is willing to accept responsibility for his conduct. Unfortunately, he had mental health issues that worsened when Disney fired him upon his return from paternity leave. Haas added: “No one was at risk of injury and he deeply regrets what happened.”

When reached for comment by Gizmodo, Haas confirmed the Court Watch report, while noting that a plea date has not yet been set. The plea date is the date on which a defendant actually enters a guilty plea, following a plea deal made between the defense attorney and the prosecutor.

Scheuer’s attacks on the company allegedly took place over a three-month period. During that time he “manipulated the menus of restaurants owned and operated by” Disney, the original complaint said. The more “benign” of these attacks include corrupting various menus by changing their font to Wingdings, thus making them incompatible. In other cases, Scheuer allegedly placed profanity on menus. The most serious crimes, however, involved Scheuer’s efforts to manipulate allergen information on menus. Scheuer is also accused of conducting denial-of-service attacks on the work accounts of some of his former colleagues.

Court Watch revealed more details about what Scheuer apparently did, based on newly revealed court documents:

Scheuer changed the wine regions of the alcoholic beverages into places with a lot of shooting. Court documents say he, at one point, added a swastika to a menu. Scheuer also admitted to leaking the link and login he used to change menus on the dark web.

Fortunately, none of the restaurant menus that Scheuer manipulated were distributed to those places.

Disney was actually hit with an unrelated “wrongful death” lawsuit last year after a woman died while eating at a restaurant operated by one of the Disney properties in Florida. The woman has an allergy to nuts and dairy and she and her husband mistakenly told their waiter that the food she ordered may not contain those ingredients. The case came to light after Disney tried to dismiss the case based on the forced arbitration clause in the couple’s Disney + trial subscription. After much outcry, Disney announced it would drop its aggressive legal strategy and allow the case to go to trial.



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