Fired employee allegedly hacked Disney World's menu system to change peanut allergy information

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A disgruntled former Disney employee allegedly repeatedly hacked into third-party menu creation software used by Walt Disney World restaurants and changed the allergy information on menus to say that foods containing peanuts are for People with allergies are safe According to a federal criminal complaint, at some point all fonts used in menus were switched to Wingdings.

The suspect in the case, Michael Scheuer, broke into a proprietary menu creation and inventory system developed exclusively for Disney by a third-party company and used to print menus for its restaurants, the complaint says. The complaint alleges he did this shortly after he was fired by Disney, using passwords he still had access to on several different systems. When he broke into the systems, he allegedly changed the menus and, in one case, broke the software for several weeks.

“The threat actor manipulated allergen information on menus by adding information to some allergen notifications that suggested certain menu items were safe for people with peanut allergies, when in fact they could be fatal for people with peanut allergies,” the criminal complaint states. According to the complaint, the menus were captured by Disney after they were printed but before they were distributed to Disney restaurants. Disney menus have extensive “allergy friendly” sections.