@babel/runtime version 7.23.5 is a minor patch release over the previous stable version 7.23.4, both serving as babel's modular runtime helpers, essential for projects leveraging Babel to transpile modern JavaScript. While both versions share the same core functionality, dependencies (regenerator-runtime ^0.14.0), license (MIT), repository and author, there are subtle differences developers should note.
The file count in the distributed package remains consistent at 215 files. However, the unpacked size on disk has slightly decreased in version 7.23.5, down to 245794 bytes from 247056 bytes in version 7.23.4. This suggests potential optimizations or minor code refactoring within the runtime helpers, leading to a marginally smaller footprint. This is generally a positive sign, as smaller packages can lead to faster installation times and reduced disk usage.
The more significant difference lies in the release date. Version 7.23.5 was released on November 29, 2023, whereas version 7.23.4 was released on November 20, 2023. The quick turnaround suggests that version 7.23.5 likely addresses bug fixes or minor improvements identified in the previous release. Developers are encouraged to upgrade to the latest version to benefit from the most up-to-date and stable runtime environment, crucial for ensuring compatibility and proper execution of transpiled code in various environments. Upgrading from 7.23.4 to 7.23.5 can provide subtle performance improvements and important bug fixes.
All the vulnerabilities related to the version 7.23.5 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.