Michael Scheuer, a Florida man who worked for Disney, has been formally accused of hacking the company’s system to alter the menus of their restaurants and add false information about the dishes, in addition to writing insults, report Court Watch y 404 Media. The attack would have cost Disney at least $150,000 in damages.
According to the criminal complaint from the state of FloridaScheuer served as menu production manager, but he was fired on June 13, 2024 for “misconduct“. It is also mentioned that the accused would have carried out more than one unauthorized intrusion into the systems after his dismissal.
Although Disney is not mentioned in the official document, the identity of the call “Company A” was confirmed by 404 Media through Scheuer’s attorney and other cross references. The complaint also mentions a “Company B“, which was responsible for creating the program Menu Creator for exclusive use of Disney.
Using the passwords that still allowed him to access the software, Shcheuer replaced the menu fonts with Wingdings (a typography which converts letters and numbers into symbols or drawings such as arrows, stars or hands), rendering them inoperable. It also modified the QR codes to redirect them to unrelated websites.
In addition to that, the complaint states that the accused would have carried out at least three other “unauthorized intrusions” to the system. In one, he altered the information about peanut-based dishes, stating that they were safe for people allergic to peanuts. y “putting the health of diners at riskDisney employees discovered the outage before sending menus to restaurants.
Defendant’s lawyer says his client suffers from “mental disability”
On September 23, the FBI raided Scheuer’s residence. Computer equipment was found at the site that contained evidence such as virtual machines and scripts used by the accused for the attacks. The complaint also mentions that Upon reviewing the IP logs, it was discovered that the intrusions were made from addresses associated with the VPN service Molethrough which he accessed the company email. For this he used a fake profile (Emily P. Beaman).
Scheuer was also seen at the residence of one of the victims after receiving notification of a search warrant for his Google account, heightening suspicions about his involvement.
The defendant’s lawyer, named Haas, said to CNN that the accusations “acknowledge that no one was injured or harmed”, and alleged that Scheuer has a “mental disability”which caused him to have a panic attack at work. According to the lawyer, his client was initially suspended and then fired. “Disney did not respond to her questions about her termination and, in response, filed a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission“, said.
