It was not possible to change message severeties for Cppcheck linter using custom parameters (like using .arclint config file).
Two functions were missing and have been implemented: getDefaultMessageSeverity and getLintCodeFromLinterConfigurationKey.
Also the function parseLinterOutput has been updated in order to get the correct severity for each message.

Get a cpp file with 'performace' issue reported by Cppcheck linter.
Running 'arc lint' should report no errors since 'performance' is a SEVERITY_ADVICE message.
Change the .arclint config to set 'performance' message as 'error' and run 'arc lint' again.
Now it should report a lint error on that file.