A federal criminal complaint accuses one former Disney employee of hacking into the software that generated food and beverage menus at the company’s resorts. The government claims that these attacks even led to dangerous changes in allergen information on menus.
The complaint filed by the Ministry of Justice states that the former employee, Michael Scheuer, committed a series of computer crimes after he was fired from the company. The affected company is not named in the complaint, it is simply referred to as “Company A.” However, 404 Media reports that it is a Disney resort, citing confirmation from an attorney representing the former employee.
In his role at Disney, Scheuer “was responsible for creating and publishing menus for the entire restaurant portfolio,” the complaint says. The software in question, called Menu Creator, was developed by a third party for Disney’s exclusive use, according to 404. Due to his position, Scheuer had “in-depth knowledge of the system architecture … [Menu Creator software], the menu processing workflow, and potential vulnerabilities in the system.”
The complaint alleges that Scheuer was fired for “misconduct” and describes his termination as “controversial and not considered amicable.”
The attacks on the company took place over a three-month period, during which Scheuer “manipulated the menus of Disney-owned and operated” Disney-owned and operated restaurants, according to the complaint. The more “benign” of these attacks consisted of defacing various menus by changing the font to Wingdings, making them unintelligible. In other cases, Scheuer allegedly inserted profanity into menus. The more serious crimes, meanwhile, are related to Scheuer’s attempts to manipulate information about allergens on the menu. Scheuer is also accused of conducting denial-of-service attacks on the work accounts of several of his former colleagues.
Recently, a wrongful death lawsuit was filed against Disney after a woman died while dining at a restaurant located on the territory of one of Disney’s facilities in Florida. The woman and her husband were mistakenly told by the waiter that the dish she had ordered could be prepared without dairy products and nuts. The case became public after Disney attempted to dismiss the case based on a compulsory arbitration clause contained in the couple’s trial subscription to Disney+. After a significant outcry, Disney announced that it was abandoning its crude legal strategy and allowing the lawsuit to proceed to trial.
However, this case is not related to the Scheuer case. Although Scheuer changed the allergen information on the restaurant menus, these menus were never distributed to the respective establishments.
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