McDonald's denies UK system shutdown was a cybersecurity attack

McDonald's has apologised after an IT outage left some of its restaurants in the UK and worldwide unable to serve food, but denied it was a victim of a cybersecurity attack.

British diners took to social media on Friday morning to complain that their local restaurants were closed but still accepting orders through the app.

Services in Japan, Australia, Hong Kong and New Zealand were also impacted, with restaurant, drive-through and online orders affected.

McDonald's Japan said a number of its almost 3,000 stores across the country had "temporarily suspended operations", while McDonald's Australia said it had been hit by a "technology outage", but that most sites had now reopened.

The New York Times reported that McDonald's Hong Kong was experiencing a computer system failure, while the chain's Taiwan arm had temporarily suspended online and telephone orders.

In a statement, McDonald's UK apologised to customers. It said: "We are aware of a technology outage which impacted our restaurants. The issue has now been resolved in the UK and Ireland.

"We thank customers for their patience and apologise for any inconvenience this may have caused. The issue is not related to a cybersecurity event."

McDonald's has more than 1,450 restaurants across the UK and Ireland and employs more than 135,000 people. It operates around 40,000 restaurants worldwide.

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