McDonald’s Suffers IT Outage In Different Countries

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Fast food chain suffers IT outages around the world, but McDonald’s denies it was because of a cyberattack

The fast food chain McDonald’s has suffered a widespread IT system outage that impacted thousands of its restaurants around the world.

According to the website Downdetector in the UK, users began reporting issues with the McDonald’s app from 6am GMT Friday. The reports began to lessen from 12pm onwards.

The Guardian reported that the McDonald’s outages had impacted countries including Japan, Australia, Austria, China, Denmark, Germany, Italy, UK and New Zealand, but the fast food giant has denied it was down to a cyberatttack.

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IT outage

According to the Guardian, the global outage affected restaurants, drive-throughs and online orders.

A global spokesperson for McDonald’s reportedly said the company was working to resolve the unspecified problem.

“We are aware of a technology outage, which impacted our restaurants; the issue is now being resolved,” the spokesperson was quoted as saying.

However the fast food giant denied the outage was down to a cyberattack.

“We thank customers for their patience and apologise for any inconvenience this may have caused. Notably, the issue is not related to a cybersecurity event,” the spokesperson reportedly said.

A UK spokesperson for McDonald’s was quoted by the Guardian as saying that the outage affecting restaurants had been “resolved” in the UK and Ireland.

Financial cost?

It remains to be seen at the time of writing, how many other McDonald’s restaurants in other countries have restored their IT systems.

It was remains to be seen what will be the financial cost of the IT outage for McDonald’s, as many customers unable to access their service on Friday are likely to have opted to use a rival fast food operator.

It was back in 2017 that McDonald’s had first revealed its plans to introduce a mobile app and its intention to expand its delivery capabilities.