Death by a Thousand Cuts: The Invisible Cost of Functional Bugs
When it comes to software failures, security breaches often grab the headlines. We hear about major data leaks, ransomware attacks, and hacking incidents on a regular basis. These events are highly visible, affecting millions of users and often leading to substantial financial and reputational damage for the companies involved. But while security issues receive significant attention, functional bugs are quietly causing massive damage in the background, often without the same level of recognition.
The Hidden Cost of Functional Bugs
According to Gartner, the number one reason companies lose customers is functional bugs. These bugs may not make the evening news, but their impact on a company’s bottom line can be catastrophic. A single downtime incident, even as short as 10 minutes, can result in lost sales worth millions of dollars, especially for large enterprises.
Functional bugs can manifest in various forms:
Service Downtime: Imagine an e-commerce platform going down during a major sale. Customers are unable to make purchases, leading to frustration and loss of revenue.
User Experience Issues: Bugs that affect usability can frustrate users, leading them to abandon the service.
System Malfunctions: Critical systems failing due to bugs can disrupt business operations and lead to significant financial losses.
Despite their severe impact, there is a glaring lack of industry standards focused on addressing these bugs compared to security issues. The OWASP Top 10, for example, provides a clear guideline for addressing security vulnerabilities, but no such standard exists for functional bugs.
Comparing Security Bugs to Functional Bugs
Security bugs often get more attention because of their immediate and dramatic impact, similar to how an airline crash becomes major news due to the loss of life and the severity of the incident. For example, the crash of an airplane like the Ariane 5 rocket explosion in 1996 resulted in a $500 million loss and significant delays in scientific research. These events are highly visible and cannot be ignored.
In contrast, functional bugs are like a slow leak, gradually eroding revenue and user trust. Companies often cover up the damage caused by functional bugs with new features, marketing noise, and large customer support teams that work to pacify dejected users. This approach is akin to applying band-aid over band-aid, without ever addressing the root cause of the issues. The pressure to shrink the QE (Quality Engineering) organization and automate everything further exacerbates the problem, leaving many functional bugs undetected and unresolved. The root cause lies somewhere else.
OWASP Top 10 for Functional Bugs: QEFIX™
To bring the same level of attention to functional bugs as we do to security bugs, we need a standardized list akin to the OWASP Top 10. We are calling it QEFIX™ which stands for Quality Engineering Functional Issues X-ray
QEFIX™ Top 10 Functional Issues
1.Service Downtime
— Description: Often caused by server overload, unhandled exceptions, or hardware failures.
— Example: Southwest Airlines network failure in 2023, leading to widespread flight disruptions and cancellations.
2. User Experience Issues
— Description: Problems in the user interface that lead to frustration and abandonment.
— Example: WhatsApp crash in 2018 due to incorrect handling of right-to-left text.
3. Data Loss
— Description: Bugs that cause loss of user data or settings.
— Example: Google+ API bug exposing user data for over three years, resulting in the shutdown of Google+.
4. Performance Degradation
— Description: Gradual slowing down of the application due to memory leaks, inefficient code, or unoptimized database queries.
— Example: Slack performance issues in 2020 due to increased remote work, leading to slow message delivery and outages.
5. Incorrect Calculations
— Description: Errors in algorithms leading to wrong outputs.
— Example: Amazon UK price glitch in 2014 reducing item prices to £0.01 due to faulty repricing software.
6. Integration Failures
— Description: Issues with integrating third-party services or APIs.
— Example: National Air Traffic Services outage in 2014 due to a bug in the System Flight Server software.
7. Security Misconfigurations
— Description: Functional bugs that inadvertently create security vulnerabilities.
— Example: Google+ bug exposing private user data.
8. Transaction Failures
— Description: Errors during critical transactions like payments or orders.
— Example: Screwfix price glitch reducing item prices to £34.99 due to a data validation error.
9. Concurrency Issues
— Description: Bugs arising from improper handling of concurrent processes.
— Example: National Air Traffic Services outage due to a check on the maximum permitted number of roles【90:13†source】.
10. Configuration Errors
— Description: Misconfigurations that lead to system failures.
— Example: Cloudflare outage in 2019 due to a misconfigured WAF rule, affecting millions of websites and users【90:0†source】.
Addressing the Challenge
To tackle this issue, companies need to adopt a proactive approach to quality engineering (QE). This involves:
- Comprehensive Testing: Implementing rigorous testing methodologies that cover all aspects of the software, from unit testing to end-to-end testing.
- Automated Testing: Using automated testing tools to continuously monitor and test the software, identifying issues before they reach production.
- Shift-Left Testing: Emphasizing early testing in the development cycle to catch bugs as early as possible.
- Predictive Analytics: Leveraging AI and machine learning to predict potential failures and test gaps, ensuring comprehensive coverage.
At OrangePro, we work with enterprises to tackle these challenges head-on. Our initial evaluations across different SaaS applications have shown that latent bugs are present in every application, ready to explode under the right conditions. By integrating predictive analytics into the QA process, we aim to identify and address these bugs before they impact the end-users.
Conclusion
Functional bugs may not make headlines, but their impact on a company’s success is undeniable. By adopting a proactive approach to quality engineering and leveraging advanced testing methodologies, companies can reduce customer churn, improve user satisfaction, and ultimately protect their bottom line. It’s time to recognize the invisible cost of functional bugs and address them with the same rigor as we do security issues.