Latent Defect is one which has been in the system for a long time; but is discovered now. i.e. a defect which has been there for a long time and should have been detected earlier is known as Latent Defect. One of the reasons why Latent Defect exists is because exact set of conditions haven’t been met.
Latent bug is an existing uncovered or unidentified bug in a system for a period of time. The bug may have one or more versions of the software and might be identified after its release.
The problems will not cause the damage currently, but wait to reveal themselves at a later time.
The defect is likely to be present in various versions of the software and may be detected after the release.
E.g. February has 28 days. The system could have not considered the leap year which results in a latent defect
- These defects do not cause damage to the system immediately but wait for a particular event sometime to cause damage and show their presence.
Masked defect hides the other defect, which is not detected at a given point of time. It means there is an existing defect that is not caused for reproducing another defect.
- Masked defect hides other defects in the system.
E.g. There is a link to add employee in the system. On clicking this link you can also add a task for the employee. Let’s assume, both the functionalities have bugs. However, the first bug (Add an employee) goes unnoticed. Because of this the bug in the add task is masked.
E.g. Failing to test a subsystem, might also cause not testing other parts of it which might have defects but remain unidentified as the subsystem was not tested due to its own defects.
