The Jargon File (version 4.4.7, 29 Dec 2003):

secondary damage
 n.

    When a fatal error occurs (esp. a segfault) the immediate cause may be
    that a pointer has been trashed due to a previous fandango on core.
    However, this fandango may have been due to an earlier fandango, so no
    amount of analysis will reveal (directly) how the damage occurred. ?The
    data structure was clobbered, but it was secondary damage.? By extension,
    the corruption resulting from N cascaded fandangoes on core is ?Nth-level
    damage?. There is at least one case on record in which 17 hours of grovel
    ling with adb actually dug up the underlying bug behind an instance of
    seventh-level damage! The hacker who accomplished this near-superhuman feat
    was presented with an award by his fellows.


The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (30 December 2018):

secondary damage

   When a fatal error occurs (especially a segfault) the
   immediate cause may be that a pointer has been trashed due to
   a previous fandango on core.  However, this fandango may
   have been due to an *earlier* fandango, so no amount of
   analysis will reveal (directly) how the damage occurred.  "The
   data structure was clobbered, but it was secondary damage."

   By extension, the corruption resulting from N cascaded
   fandangoes on core is "Nth-level damage".  There is at least
   one case on record in which 17 hours of grovelling with
   "adb" actually dug up the underlying bug behind an instance of
   seventh-level damage!  The hacker who accomplished this
   near-superhuman feat was presented with an award by his
   fellows.

   [Jargon File]