An ex-employee of Walt Disney World was arrested by federal authorities last week for allegedly hacking into the software program that maintains the menus of restaurants operating within the entertainment complex and altering the listings.
Some of the changes allegedly made by Michael Scheuer were mere pranks. For instance, he wove some obscenities into the descriptions of dishes, according to a criminal complaint filed by an FBI agent who investigated the breach. Similarly, he was accused of changing the prices on some items.
But Scheuer also rewrote some of the blurbs to indicate the dishes they described were safe for customers with allergies to peanuts, when in fact the ground nut was an ingredient in those options.
The rewrites could have left allergy sufferers vulnerable to unwittingly ingesting ingredients that could trigger a fatal reaction.
But none of the printed menus made it into the field, according to the FBI, because Disney employees detected that the listings had been altered. Staff members noticed that the type elements used on the menus seemed out of character for the restaurants receiving the new menus and brought the puzzling changes to management’s attention.
Federal authorities traced the alterations back to one of Sheuer’s four personal computers.
The suspect had been fired by Disney in June for what the FBI affidavit characterized as misconduct, without detailing the behavior. “Michael Sheuer’s firing was contentious and was not considered to be amicable,” FBI Special Agent Timothy Callinan wrote in the affidavit.
In the months that followed, Sheuer repeatedly tried to log into Disney’s menu maintenance software. The FBI did not indicate how often the Florida man had succeeded.
Scheuer knew the software well because he had worked as a menu production manager for Disney, updating the bills of fare for eating places in the park as needed.
Court dates for Scheuer were not revealed.
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