We have all grown up watching Disney and Pixar movies featuring bug characters as cute little creatures. Back then, the world seemed full of magic and wonder, and all was well.
However, there is an end to every childhood world, isn’t there?
In a developer’s world, bugs are the arch-villain. A bug is an inescapable part of every software development cycle, and new bugs are found in software every day, some of which occur more frequently.
Nowadays, software teams are constantly bombarded with huge amounts of code that must be written as quickly and efficiently as possible, while still ensuring that each customer’s needs are met. With the increasing complexity of projects today, bugs are inevitably going to happen, no matter how skilled and careful the developers are.
Do not fear, though. There is always a solution to such problems. By incorporating various testing techniques and knowing the different types of bugs, you and your software development team can ensure that your next project is bug-free and fully reaches customer satisfaction.
Let’s take a look at the dire foes you might end up facing on the cyber battlefield!
Basics First — What Is a Software Bug?
A bug is the informal name of a defect. Defects refer to any known or unknown errors, flaws, or faults that occur during a software development life cycle, showing that the software is not performing as intended by the developer. Bugs cause the software to produce incorrect or unexpected results or behave in unintended ways.
How Is a Bug Caused?
In most cases, software bugs are caused by human mistakes made in the source code, components, or operating system of a program. In software testing, bugs can occur for several reasons, including Wrong coding, missing coding, excessive coding, etc.
Different Types of Software Bugs: Three Common Classifications
Software bugs can be labeled based on three classifications: nature, priority, severity.
Let’s have a look:
Software Bugs by Nature
Functional defects: As the name implies, these bugs are identified in case the software does not behave according to functional requirements. Performing a functional test can help to discover such types of bugs.
Performance defects: During performance testing, you might find these bugs relating to software’s speed, stability, response time, and resource consumption.
Usability defects: This kind of bug includes any problem in the software that leads a user to an undesirable income. They can be found either by formal usability evaluation methods or indirectly during system testing or usage.
Compatibility defects: This type of bug affects the performance of the software when it is run on certain types of hardware, browser, operating system, etc. Compatibility testing is usually performed in order to find out whether such bugs exist.
Security defects: A security bug in software is a technical deficiency that, when exploited, could allow unauthorized access or privileges on a computer system. These bugs are the vulnerabilities that allow for potential security attacks. They are typically caused by two factors: failure to comply with software requirements or an error/omission in the requirements.
Security bugs most commonly found in systems include encryption errors, XSS vulnerabilities, vulnerability to SQL injections, weak authentication, buffer overflows, and logical errors in role-based access.
As with other defects, security bugs are crucial to be fixed, even more so. To ensure software security, you need to improve the development process and create software that has fewer bugs in the first place. As the second phase, code analysis is necessary to ensure if the software source code is defect-free and conforms to all security requirements.
Last but not least, testing completes the process. Penetration tests are performed in the final phase to examine the behavior of the software and to confirm the results from previous analyses.
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Software defects by severity
Bug severity can be categorized based on its impact on software functionality and the threat it poses to the software.
Low-severity bugs: Mainly related to software UI, does not cause any obvious system errors.
Medium-severity bugs: May produce unexpected behavior, but won’t cause a complete breakdown of the system.
High-severity bugs: These bugs disable the software from properly performing its main functions.
Critical bugs: Deep trouble. They cause complete system shutdown or the inaccessibility of software to users.
Software defects by priority
Prioritizing bugs mainly depends on the software you are building and the goal you have in mind. Simply put, how important is it that the bug is fixed? Depending on the business impact bugs may have, they can be classified into four severity levels:
Low priority bugs: These bugs don’t need to be fixed urgently, no worries. However, they still need to be fixed before an application becomes generally available.
Medium-priority bugs: No major issue. These defects can be resolved during development and testing without a great deal of urgency.
High-priority bugs: These bugs have the potential to affect core functionalities. Consequently, they should be fixed before the launch of the product or through its first patch.
Urgent bugs: It’s no laughing matter at all. Essentially, these bugs compromise the main functionality and must be resolved within 24 hours after being reported.
Correct Defect Classification Matters
Bug classification and management are important for several reasons.
Creating quality code is always the goal of software developers and programmers. Buggy code negatively impacts the bottom line of the business, as well as the developer’s reputation and team.
Bug-related costs are also significant, and they do not only apply internally. According to IBM, software bugs can cost an average of $2.3 billion in shareholder value on the very first day it is made public. Ouch!
It costs four to five times greater to fix a buggy release than a defect discovered during the design phase, and up to 100 times more than a defect found during maintenance.
All in all, defect management is an essential component of software testing pipelines. In the absence of proper defect tracking tools and a defect management process, bugs will inevitably find their way into production.
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In the process of penetration testing, SecureBug helps you uncover security bugs and vulnerabilities to mitigate cyber risk and protect your business data from future cyber-attacks.
