@babel/runtime v7.17.8 and v7.17.7 are modular runtime helpers from the Babel project, designed to provide pre-compiled versions of Babel's helper functions. These helpers are essential for running transformed code in environments that may not natively support newer JavaScript features, allowing developers to leverage modern syntax across different platforms. Both versions share the same core functionality, license (MIT), repository location, and author (The Babel Team). They also depend on the same version of regenerator-runtime (^0.13.4), which handles the regenerator functions needed for async/await and generator support.
The primary difference lies in their release dates and unpacked sizes. Version 7.17.8 was released on March 18, 2022, while version 7.17.7 was released on March 14, 2022. More interesting is the Unpacked size of the newer version, which is 172598 bytes in size compared to the older version with 170180 bytes. The difference in unpacked size, although relatively small, suggests that v7.17.8 contains some code enhancements, bug fixes, or new helper functions compared to v7.17.7. For developers, this can translate into improved performance or greater stability. While the changelog isn’t provided, developers should consider upgrading to the latest version (v7.17.8) to benefit from any under-the-hood improvements and ensure they have the most up-to-date runtime support for their Babel-compiled code. It is also advisable to review the Babel project's official release notes or commit history for more detailed information.
All the vulnerabilities related to the version 7.17.8 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.