14-hour+ global blackout at Ingram Micro halts customer orders
- Reference: 1751625574
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2025/07/04/ingram_micro_technical_difficulties/
- Source link:
The outages at Ingram Micro, one of the world's biggest IT distributors, began at around 2000 UTC yesterday, according to Reg reader reports and social media.
The distie turned over revenue of $12.28 billion in Q1 ended March 29, 2025, with net income of $69.2 million.
[1]
Many of its local websites display the same maintenance splash page, complete with contact details for sales and customer service teams.
[2]
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Managed service providers (MSPs) speaking to The Register reported issues such as being unable to manage their customers' services.
Others complained about being unable to place orders "for critical software backup licenses, but also for hardware."
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Ingram's partner portal is reportedly unavailable, ruling out the management of Microsoft 365 licenses, Dropbox licenses, hardware purchases, and more.
Another individual claimed that staff at Ingram's service center in Bulgaria, which covers a large chunk of European sales, have all been sent home and told to keep their laptops disconnected amid a total internal system shutdown.
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Ingram Micro UK website displaying maintenance splash page
The Register approached Ingram Micro for more information but it did not immediately respond.
The company's lack of communication has not gone unnoticed by customers, who [6]flocked to Reddit to complain in their droves, and in typical Reddit fashion speculated that it may be the result of malicious activity.
"I can't believe it's powering towards 24 hours and there's absolutely no feedback whatsoever of what's going on," one wrote.
[7]Three goes to zero as UK mobile provider suffers voice and text outage
[8]Experts count staggering costs incurred by UK retail amid cyberattack hell
[9]Attack on Oxford City Council exposes 21 years of election worker data
[10]Alt cloud platform Railway forced to pause lowest tiers after onrush of GCP customers
Some glass-half-full takes referenced the company's recent updates to XVantage's [11]AI and mobile app as possible explanations for the downtime, while others suspect foul play.
"We are currently experiencing technical difficulties," the UK maintenance page reads.
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"We apologize for the inconvenience and are working to resolve the issue as quickly as possible."
The same page lists a physical address and phone number to contact with any questions, though when we called, the line appeared to be disconnected.
Customers on social media complained about emails to their account managers bouncing back, and that the mobile app is working but purchases are not completing.
The Register tried to contact sources within [13]Ingram Micro and while our emails did not bounce back, we were unable to reach anyone via phone.
This is a developing story. The Register will provide updates when they are available. ®
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[1] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offprem/channel&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2aGf6k5zUfJJn7Ygri1mOUwAAAE0&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[2] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offprem/channel&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44aGf6k5zUfJJn7Ygri1mOUwAAAE0&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[3] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offprem/channel&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33aGf6k5zUfJJn7Ygri1mOUwAAAE0&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[4] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offprem/channel&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44aGf6k5zUfJJn7Ygri1mOUwAAAE0&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[5] https://regmedia.co.uk/2025/07/04/ingram_micro_splash.png
[6] https://www.reddit.com/r/msp/comments/1lqyayw/ingram_micro_down/?sort=new
[7] https://www.theregister.com/2025/06/25/three_uk_mobile_outage/
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2025/06/23/experts_count_the_staggering_costs/
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2025/06/20/oxford_city_council_breach/
[10] https://www.theregister.com/2025/06/16/railway_pauses_lowest_tiers/
[11] https://www.theregister.com/2025/07/03/ai_models_potemkin_understanding/
[12] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offprem/channel&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33aGf6k5zUfJJn7Ygri1mOUwAAAE0&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[13] https://www.theregister.com/2024/12/16/ingram_micro_vmware_broadcom_deal_ends/
[14] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
It sounds like that. But whatever the explanation there's a cautionary tale in there about dependence on tightly integrated supply chains.
This was my thought as well.
"have all been sent home and told to keep their laptops disconnected amid a total internal system shutdown." makes it sound like a ransomware attack. And by the sound of it they're DEEP into Ingram systems.
The laptops need to be disconnected so that the clean-up operations do not touch them. Once the internal systems have been sanitised then the laptops can be reconnected and everything re-infected.
I would wonder, if this is the case (and to be honest if they've been told to go home and leave laptops off it sounds like it), how much access could the attacker get? Is there a potential that they'll have access to client tenancies?
Same old
Their dropbox management portal never works properly and that's the only service we purchase from them, so nothing's changed for us.
Re: Same old
Well, rather embarrassingly they had their Q3 results call yesterday. I daresay it was full of the usual management bullshit about how remarkably good and robust their technology is.
I'd just like to make it clear that even though IM made my account payment with order due to lack of usage (after about 30 years of doing business with them) I am NOT respobible for their online outage. I feel a bit sorry for them really. Tons of stuff on their webshop is never in stock and the lead times can be very long but they do try.
Resilience
The supposed "Critcial backup licences and hardware" can easily be sourced via other distributors. I'd be surprised if any of their customers only had an account with one distributor since all customers tend to price match over multiple suppliers to get best value.
Seems like razor thin margins
Quarter 1 revenue USD 12.3 billion, income USD 69.2 million.
Perhaps they couldn't pay the power bill ?
Re: Seems like razor thin margins
Sounds more like they have a good accountant. Taxes are paid on profits, not turnover, so companies try to make sure the money ends up were it needs to be (including various pockets) while appearing to make only a minimal profit, or even a loss which can then be used to justify tax rebates.
'We apologize for the inconvenience'. Hold on, if this really is God's final message ...
If the staff have been told to keep their laptops disconnected, it is some sort of malware infection. There's no other explanation.