@babel/runtime version 7.13.7 is a minor update to Babel's modular runtime helpers, succeeding version 7.13.6. Both versions provide essential runtime support for Babel-transformed code, enabling developers to use modern JavaScript features in environments that may not natively support them. Crucially, both versions share the same dependency on regenerator-runtime (version ^0.13.4), indicating no significant changes to asynchronous code handling at this juncture. The core functionality remains consistent: facilitating the execution of Babel-compiled code across various JavaScript environments.
While the descriptive metadata remains largely unchanged between the versions – same author, license, repository – a key differentiator lies in the dist section. Version 7.13.7 exhibits an increased unpackedSize (143816 bytes) compared to 7.13.6 (137330 bytes). This suggests that the newer version incorporates additional or optimized runtime helpers, potentially addressing bug fixes, performance improvements, or expanded support for new language features processed by Babel. The update was released on February 24, 2021, shortly after 7.13.6's release on February 23, 2021, indicating a quick turnaround, possibly to resolve an immediate issue. Developers already using @babel/runtime should upgrade to 7.13.7 to benefit from these refinements.
All the vulnerabilities related to the version 7.13.7 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.