@babel/runtime version 7.20.7 represents a minor update to Babel's runtime helpers, succeeding version 7.20.6. Both versions provide essential modular runtime implementations for Babel-transformed code, ensuring compatibility across different JavaScript environments. The core functionality, aimed at streamlining the execution of modern JavaScript syntax in older browsers or environments, remains consistent. Both share the same dependency on regenerator-runtime at version ^0.13.11, crucial for supporting async/await functionalities.
The key differences lie in the internal implementation and associated metadata. Version 7.20.7 features 201 files within its distribution package, slightly up from the 199 files in version 7.20.6. This incremental increase likely reflects internal code adjustments, bug fixes, or the addition of new helper functions, contributing to a marginally larger unpacked size of 220150 bytes, compared to 219855 bytes. Developers should note the newer release date of version 7.20.7, indicating it incorporates the latest improvements and potentially addresses reported issues present in the prior release. For developers already using @babel/runtime, upgrading to 7.20.7 ensures they benefit from these refinements, enhanced stability, and any potential performance gains, keeping their projects aligned with the most current Babel runtime environment without requiring significant code modifications. Regularly updating babel dependencies is considered a best practice to reduce security risks.
All the vulnerabilities related to the version 7.20.7 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.