Severity Glossary

Browse 5 severity terms defined in plain English, from the cultural dictionary of computing.

5 Severity Terms

Incident Classification: The process of categorizing a security event by type, severity, scope, and response pathway so the right teams and procedures are triggered. Common classes...
Incident Severity: The assigned level of seriousness for a security incident based on impact, scope, exploitability, and business consequences. Incident severity drives who gets...
Major Breakage: A blunt label for serious damage to system behavior, reliability, or user experience. In engineering slang, major breakage is what people say before the...
Million Dollar Bug: A bug with very large financial consequences, either directly or through outages, fines, or damaged business. In engineering slang, the phrase is literal often...
Show Stopper: A problem severe enough to halt a launch, demo, or plan until it is addressed. In engineering slang, show stoppers are the issues that remove the option of...