Facebook suffers outage

Millions of users unable to access Facebook and Instagram accounts on Tuesday morning

Earlier today, Facebook suffered from a widespread outage with millions of users unable to access their accounts.

It appears that the social networking site was unavailable for 40 minutes before coming back online.

Users of photo-sharing app Instagram in some countries also reported difficulties in accessing their accounts.

An Instagram spokesman posted on Twitter: "We're aware of an outage affecting Instagram and are working on a fix. Thank you for your patience."

The app was back online at around the same time that Facebook was restored.

The BBC reports that a hacker group called ‘Lizard Squad’ has claimed responsibility of the outage. The group has also claimed to have attacked the Malaysia Airlines website on Monday.