Not a Cyber threat! – McDonald’s

Due to a technical glitch, multiple McDonald’s outlets weren’t functional across the globe, including Japan, the UK and Australia. Anyhow, the company assured the public that there was no indication of a cybersecurity breach. 

In Japan, many McDonald’s stores had to halt in-person and mobile orders due to the system disruption, according to a spokesperson at McDonald’s Holdings Company Japan. Efforts were underway to restore normal operations swiftly, the spokesperson added. 

In a statement, McDonald’s acknowledged the technology outage and assured customers that the issue was being addressed. While outlets in the UK and Ireland had fully recovered, most McDonald’s restaurants in Australia had reopened, the company stated. 

With approximately 40,000 outlets globally, including over 14,000 in the United States, McDonald’s operates nearly 3,000 stores in Japan and approximately 1,000 in Australia, according to its regional websites. The exact number of affected stores worldwide was not immediately disclosed, as McDonald’s did not respond to requests for comment on the matter. 

Reports emerged of disruptions in Hong Kong and New Zealand, with customers venting their frustrations on social media platforms. The New York Times highlighted issues at McDonald’s Hong Kong, citing a “computer system failure” that rendered mobile and self-ordering kiosks non-functional. 

Coincidentally, Meta-owned platforms Facebook and Instagram encountered technical difficulties earlier in the month, disrupting services globally for several hours. 

Later, McDonald’s issued an apology for the widespread technology outage, attributing it to a third-party technology provider. The incident occurred around midnight CDT during a configuration change and was nearing resolution approximately 12 hours later, the company, headquartered in Chicago, revealed. 

Brian Rice, McDonald’s global chief information officer, expressed regret over the disruption, emphasizing the company’s commitment to technology reliability and stability. He assured stakeholders that resolving such incidents was a top priority and thanked them for their patience while apologizing for any inconvenience caused. 

McDonald’s clarified that the outage was unrelated to its transition to Google Cloud as a technology provider. In December, the company announced a multi-year partnership with Google aimed at migrating restaurant operations to the cloud, with the goal of streamlining tasks such as kiosk ordering and staffing optimization. 

[Image Source : eater.com]