@babel/runtime version 7.23.1 represents a minor update over the preceding stable version 7.23.0, both serving as babel's modular runtime helpers. Both versions share identical core characteristics: they are designed to provide essential runtime support for Babel-transformed code, allowing developers to leverage modern JavaScript features while maintaining compatibility with older environments. Key features include a MIT license, a dependency to regenerator-runtime version ^0.14.0 and the sources hosted on Github.
The most notable distinctions lies in the release timing. Version 7.23.1 was published shortly after 7.23.0 on September 25th, 2023, with approximately a 20-minute gap between releases. In practice there are no differences in features between version 7.23.0 and version 7.23.1.
For developers already using @babel/runtime, the upgrade from 7.23.0 to 7.23.1 is likely to be seamless and without any breaking changes, and is not strictly necessary. The babel team may have fixed very small bugs or made non-functional changes to release the version 7.23.1. Always consult the official Babel changelog or release notes for a comprehensive detailing of any specific changes, bug fixes or security patches introduced in the newer version.
All the vulnerabilities related to the version 7.23.1 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.