time bomb

• timebomb, time-bomb

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.

   • 2023 May 31, Nigel Harris, “Comment: GBR now! We have no Plan B”, in RAIL, number 984, page 3:

     Someone must explain to Sunak about the time bomb ticking beneath his £1,000 loafers.

   • 2023 June 30, Marina Hyde, “The tide is coming in fast on Rishi Sunak – and it’s full of sewage”, in The Guardian‎:

     The pandemic preparation timebomb detonated to devastating effect; a number of other timebombs are on the shortest of fuses. The government has now reached a state of perfect vicious cycle, when the only thing worse than the things it does are all the things it didn’t get round to doing.

• accident waiting to happen