time bomb

See also: timebomb and time-bomb

English

Alternative forms

Noun

time bomb (plural time bombs)

  1. A bomb that has a mechanism such that detonation can be preset to a particular time.
  2. (computing) A malicious program designed to perform a destructive action at a certain date and/or time.
    • 1994, Peter G. Neumann, Computer-Related Risks‎, Addison-Wesley Professional, →ISBN:
      Donald Gene Burleson was prosecuted on felony charges for planting a time bomb that, shortly after he was fired, deleted more than 168,000 brokerage records of USPA & IRA in Fort Worth, Texas.
  3. (figuratively) A situation that threatens to have disastrous consequences at some future time.
    • 2014 June 6, Françoise Fressoz, “France’s Ticking Time Bomb”, in The New York Times‎, →ISSN:
      Even so, they managed to morph the recent European parliamentary elections into a time bomb and plant it under their country’s own future.

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