McDonald's said Friday that the global IT system outage was not related to the cybersecurity event. McDonald's has been working to resolve the issue since Friday morning, causing ordering disruptions and the temporary closure of some restaurants around the world. File photo: Kevin Dietsch/UPI
March 15 (UPI) — A global McDonald's IT system outage that disrupted the restaurant chain's operations was still being resolved Friday, but McDonald's said it was not a cyberattack.
McDonald's said in a statement Friday: “We are aware of a technology outage that impacted our restaurants. This issue is currently being resolved.” “Of note, this issue is not related to a cybersecurity event.”
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The technical outage, which affected the ordering app, occurred around 1 a.m. EDT in the U.S. and was restored by 5 a.m. EDT, a cashier at a McDonald's in New York told CNN.
The problem spread from the US to Australia, China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, the UK, and Japan.
McDonald's Japan X said, “Many stores across the country are temporarily closed. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause to our customers.'' “There is currently a system failure.”
McDonald's announced on its Hong Kong Facebook account that the cause was a “computer system failure.”
Sarah MacLean, a McDonald's franchise owner in the UK, told the BBC that she had been informed by an area manager that there had been an “IT outage”.
The company announced Friday morning that the issue had been resolved in the UK and Ireland.
McDonald's Japan's X account acknowledged the problem early Friday morning and apologized to customers.
McDonald's has 13,457 restaurants in the United States and 41,822 restaurants worldwide.
