@babel/runtime version 7.18.3 is a minor release following 7.18.2, both providing Babel's modular runtime helpers for JavaScript projects. Both of them have identical dependencies on regenerator-runtime version ^0.13.4. Both versions are licensed under the MIT license and maintained by The Babel Team with the source code residing in the same GitHub repository ("https://github.com/babel/babel.git", directory: "packages/babel-runtime"). The key differences lie in the release date, unpacked size and available tarball within the npm registry.
Version 7.18.3 was released on May 25, 2022, at 14:44:31.455Z, a few hours after version 7.18.2 which was released on May 25, 2022, at 09:16:27.813Z. While both versions share the same file count of 193, the unpacked size of 7.18.3 is slightly smaller at 201084 bytes compared to 201086 bytes in the prior version. This suggests some micro-optimizations or minor adjustments were made to reduce the overall footprint. Developers considering an upgrade should note that the core functionality and dependencies remain unchanged, minimizing the risk of breaking changes. The newer version offers a potentially lighter footprint, which might be advantageous in resource-constrained environments, however, the size difference is negligible. Developers should always refer to the official Babel changelog for a detailed list of fixes and improvements included in version 7.18.3.
All the vulnerabilities related to the version 7.18.3 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.