@babel/runtime versions 7.1.5 and 7.1.2 are both modular runtime helpers for Babel, designed to support the execution of transformed JavaScript code in various environments. Both versions share the same core purpose, providing essential functions and utilities that Babel uses to implement language features like async/await, classes, and generators. They both depend on the regenerator-runtime package, version 0.12.0 or higher, for generator function support. The MIT license and the origin from the Babel project reinforce the stability and community support associated with this library.
However, version 7.1.5 includes some enhancements compared to 7.1.2. The most obvious differences are that npm packages had been updated, increasing slightly the file count, which went from 136 to 138, and the unpacked size, that went up from 75799 bytes to 77139. These upgrades, bundled in more files, likely reflect bug fixes, performance improvements, or the inclusion of additional utility functions, and were released on November 6th, 2018, a bit more than a month after, September 28th, the publish date of the version 7.1.2. For developers, upgrading to 7.1.5 likely means a more refined and robust set of runtime helpers, potentially benefiting from enhanced compatibility, stability, and efficiency when running Babel-compiled code. Consider that, because the changes are minor, the update from 7.1.2 to 7.1.5 should be seamless during subsequent builds while taking advantage of the optimization.
All the vulnerabilities related to the version 7.1.5 of the package
Babel has inefficient RegExp complexity in generated code with .replace when transpiling named capturing groups
When using Babel to compile regular expression named capturing groups, Babel will generate a polyfill for the .replace method that has quadratic complexity on some specific replacement pattern strings (i.e. the second argument passed to .replace).
Your generated code is vulnerable if all the following conditions are true:
.replace method on a regular expression that contains named capturing groups.replaceIf you are using @babel/preset-env with the targets option, the transform that injects the vulnerable code is automatically enabled if:
You can verify what transforms @babel/preset-env is using by enabling the debug option.
This problem has been fixed in @babel/helpers and @babel/runtime 7.26.10 and 8.0.0-alpha.17, please upgrade. It's likely that you do not directly depend on @babel/helpers, and instead you depend on @babel/core (which itself depends on @babel/helpers). Upgrading to @babel/core 7.26.10 is not required, but it guarantees that you are on a new enough @babel/helpers version.
Please note that just updating your Babel dependencies is not enough: you will also need to re-compile your code.
If you are passing user-provided strings as the second argument of .replace on regular expressions that contain named capturing groups, validate the input and make sure it does not contain the substring $< if it's then not followed by > (possibly with other characters in between).
This vulnerability was reported and fixed in https://github.com/babel/babel/pull/17173.