ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) – A former employee hacked Walt Disney World’s servers to manipulate computer menus to change prices, add obscenities and alter notifications to incorrectly label certain items. Declared safe for people with allergies. Federal criminal complaint.
The former employee was arrested last week following an FBI investigation. His court-appointed attorney, David Haas, said Thursday that his client plans to plead not guilty after formal indictments are filed. In the meantime, he was held in jail pending a minimum bond hearing set for next week.
In a motion for his release, Haas said his client has struggled with mental health issues since childhood and is currently seeing a psychiatrist.
“He is not receiving any mental health counseling or treatment in prison,” the lawyer said in the motion.
Disney said Thursday it was not commenting on the matter. Disney caught those changes before they were sent to restaurants, including allergen information, with “potentially fatal consequences depending on the severity of the customer’s allergy,” the complaint said.
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 has determined that a worker who was fired from his job as a menu production manager last June was a possible suspect. The criminal complaint said the termination was “contentious and not considered amicable,” and his job responsibilities included creating and publishing menus for the company’s entire restaurant portfolio.
Only those in his position or similar positions “would have the access and knowledge to execute the attacks,” the complaint said.
The former Disney worker denied any wrongdoing when FBI agents searched his home last month.
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Mike Schneider, Associated Press