Michael Scheuer, a former Disney employee, was sentenced to three years in prison for hacking into the company's servers and altering restaurant menus. His actions included falsifying allergen information, adding profane language, and making disruptive changes that threatened public health and safety. Scheuer's hacking activities caused significant operational issues, including rendering the Menu Creator system inoperable and locking out employees from their accounts. Disney managed to identify and rectify the altered menus before they were distributed, although the disruption required them to take systems offline to restore functionality. In addition to his prison sentence, Scheuer was ordered to pay nearly $690,000 in restitution, primarily to Disney, after pleading guilty to computer fraud and aggravated identity theft.

Michael Scheuer, a former Disney menu production manager, hacked into Disney's secure servers to alter restaurant menus, posing significant risks by falsifying allergen information and adding inappropriate content.

The alterations made by Scheuer included changing prices, adding profane language, and altering allergen information to indicate that peanut-containing items were peanut-free, which could have been fatal for those with peanut allergies.

Scheuer also disrupted Disney's operations by altering menu text fonts to wingdings, which rendered the Menu Creator system inoperable until Disney could revert to backups.

His hacking campaign extended to disabling employee accounts, locking out at least 14 employees by using a bot to attempt over 100,000 logins with incorrect passwords, making their accounts unusable.

In addition to a three-year prison sentence, Scheuer was ordered to pay approximately $690,000 in restitution, primarily to Disney, after pleading guilty to computer fraud and aggravated identity theft.

Scheuer's lawyer noted his remorse and the mitigation efforts that led to a sentence half of what the government initially sought, highlighting the impact of his actions on former colleagues and the company.

Despite the disruptions caused by Scheuer's actions, Disney managed to identify and rectify the altered menu information before any potentially harmful menus were distributed to their restaurants.