McDonald's restaurants were forced to temporarily close around the world on Friday after an IT outage.

The system failure meant that the fast food chain could not take any orders or serve any food, with screens used to take orders not working. Services have now resumed.

"We are aware of a technology outage, which impacted our restaurants; the issue is now being resolved," the company said in a statement.

"We thank customers for their patience and apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused. Notably, the issue is not related to a cybersecurity event."

In a later statement, the company blamed the issue on a "configuration change" by a third-party provider.

The franchise chain has about 40,000 restaurants worldwide.