Fired Disney employee gets 3 years in prison for hacking and changing menus

A former Disney employee has been sentenced to three years in prison for hacking into the company’s servers to alter restaurant menus.

Michael Scheuer, who worked as a menu production manager for Disney, was also ordered to pay nearly $690,000 in restitution.

Disney identified and removed all altered menus before they were distributed to restaurants. Scheuer’s hacking activities included changing prices, adding profane language, and altering allergen information, posing a risk to public health and safety.

Disney employees discovered the disruption when Scheuer changed menu text fonts to become icon symbols, causing the Menu Creator system to become inoperable.

The Department of Justice says Scheuer also altered menu information related to wine regions to reflect locations of recent mass shootings, and disabled employee accounts during his hacking campaigns.

Scheuer’s lawyer, David Haas, expressed Scheuer’s remorse and gratitude for the judge’s decision to sentence him to half of what the government was seeking.