# Blast radius

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Distance from the source affected by an explosion

For the PlayStation game, see [Blast Radius](/source/Blast_Radius). For the Arrow episode, see [Blast Radius (Arrow)](/source/Blast_Radius_(Arrow)).

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A physical **blast radius** is the distance from the source that will be affected when an [explosion](/source/Explosion) occurs. A blast radius is often associated with [bombs](/source/Bomb), [mines](/source/Land_mine), explosive projectiles ([propelled grenades](/source/40_mm_grenade)), and other weapons with an explosive charge. The term also has usages in [computer programming](/source/Computer_programming).

## Uses in software

### Cloud Computing

In [cloud computing](/source/Cloud_computing), the term **blast radius** is used to designate the impact that a security breach of one single component of an application could have on the overall composite application. Reducing the blast radius of any component is a security good practice. The concept is used in [Zero trust security model](/source/Zero_trust_security_model) and [Chaos engineering](/source/Chaos_engineering).[1][2][3]

### Maintenance

An alternate usage of the term relates to [technical debt](/source/Technical_debt), where it refers generally to how many otherwise redundant edits on different scripts would need to be made when changing something small.[4] In this way, **blast radius** is also closely connected to [magic numbers](/source/Magic_number_(programming)), such as if a specific float is constantly being used across many scripts without being assigned to a variable it may take a long time to find all instances of the number to change all to the new desired amount.

## See also

- [Overpressure](/source/Overpressure)

## References

1. **[^](#cite_ref-1)** ["Improving Resiliency by Creating Chaos"](https://devops.com/improving-resiliency-by-creating-chaos/). 5 August 2021.

1. **[^](#cite_ref-2)** ["Getting Started with AWS Cloud Essentials"](https://aws.amazon.com/getting-started/fundamentals-core-concepts/).

1. **[^](#cite_ref-3)** ["BeyondProd: A new approach to cloud-native security | Documentation"](https://cloud.google.com/docs/security/beyondprod).

1. **[^](#cite_ref-4)** ["Blast Radius – Apono Wiki"](https://www.apono.io/wiki/blast-radius-2/). *Apono*. Retrieved 2025-07-21.

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Adapted from the Wikipedia article [Blast radius](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blast_radius) by Wikipedia contributors ([contributor history](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blast_radius?action=history)). Available under [Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/). Changes may have been made.