Time Bomb Definition

An explosive device connected to a timer that will set it off at a given moment.

Any situation or person regarded as having a likely explosive or dangerous effect in the future.

Something that threatens to have an abruptly disastrous outcome in the future.

A type of logic bomb that is set-off—either once or at different intervals—at some preset time. Though much has been written about time bombs in fiction books, and tales exist about time bombs being set up in company computers by programmers about to be fired, few real such events have actually been reported. One incident apparently occurred in 1986 in the Soviet Union when an upset programmer at the Volga Automobile Plant planted a time bomb, halting production on the main assembly plant for a day (not coincidentally a week after the programmer went on vacation). The case received much media attention in the Soviet Union, in part because it was the first cracking case to make it to court there and the logic bomb exploit got the programmer a three-year prison sentence. Farlex, Inc. Time Bomb Definition. [Online, 2004.] Farlex, Inc. Website. http://computing-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/time%20bomb.