Disney worker accused of hacking system to edit food menus

Disney says the attacks cost at least $150,000.

Disney (Copyright 2023 The Associated Press. All rights reserved)

A former Disney employee has been accused of editing menus to remove allergy details and adding swear words.

The man hacked servers at Walt Disney World after being fired in order to manipulate computer menus by changing prices, adding profanities and altering notifications to wrongly declare some items as safe for people with allergies, according to a federal criminal complaint.

The former employee was arrested last week following an investigation by the FBI. His court-appointed attorney, David Haas, said Thursday that his client intended to plea not guilty once a formal indictment has been filed. In the meantime, he was being held in jail until at least a bond hearing set for next week.

In a motion seeking his release, Haas said that his client had struggled with mental health issues since childhood and was currently seeing a psychiatrist.

“He is not receiving any mental health counselling or treatment in jail,” the attorney said in the motion.

Disney said Thursday it wasn't commenting on the case. Disney caught the changes before the menus were shipped to restaurants, including the allergen information, with “potentially fatal consequences depending on the severity of the customers’ allergies," the complaint said.

In addition to the font changes, he also allegedly used his credentials to download menus to be printed and altered them to redirect menu QR codes to a website on boycotting Israel.

Disney was forced to take its menu creation program offline for more than a week, and the company says the attacks cost at least $150,000.

An internal investigation by Disney determined that the worker who was fired last June from his job as a menu production manager was a potential suspect. The termination was “contentious and not considered to be amicable,” and his job responsibilities included the creation and publishing of menus for the company's entire restaurant portfolio, the criminal complaint said.

Only workers in his position or similar positions “would have the accesses and knowledge to carry out the attacks,” the complaint said.

The former Disney worker denied any wrongdoing when FBI agents searched his house last month.