Babel-jest is a crucial Jest plugin that seamlessly integrates Babel, enabling developers to transform their code for testing. Comparing versions 24.4.0 and 24.3.1 reveals subtle yet important differences. Both versions share core dependencies like chalk, slash, @jest/types, babel-preset-jest, @types/babel__core, and babel-plugin-istanbul, ensuring consistent functionality. They also use the same dev dependencies @babel/core and @types/slash.
The key change lies in the @jest/transform dependency. Version 24.4.0 upgrades this to @jest/transform":"^24.4.0", aligning it with the babel-jest version. This signifies a potential enhancement or bug fix within Jest's transform mechanism, directly impacting how babel-jest processes and transforms code before testing. This update might introduce improved performance, better support for newer JavaScript features, or resolutions to previously identified transformation issues. This is important for developers aiming to keep their testing environment in sync with the latest improvements.
The versions keep the same MIT License, the same repository URL and structure. babel-jest 24.4.0 was released on March 11, 2019, a few days after 24.3.1 that was released on March 7, 2019. Both versions share the same unpacked size.
For developers, this update suggests evaluating the impact of @jest/transform 24.4.0 on their test suites. While the change may be minor, it's prudent to ensure compatibility and leverage any performance gains or bug fixes it offers for a smoother testing experience. Upgrading is recommended to benefit from the newest improvements in the Jest ecosystem.
All the vulnerabilities related to the version 24.4.0 of the package
Regular Expression Denial of Service (ReDoS) in micromatch
The NPM package micromatch prior to version 4.0.8 is vulnerable to Regular Expression Denial of Service (ReDoS). The vulnerability occurs in micromatch.braces() in index.js because the pattern .* will greedily match anything. By passing a malicious payload, the pattern matching will keep backtracking to the input while it doesn't find the closing bracket. As the input size increases, the consumption time will also increase until it causes the application to hang or slow down. There was a merged fix but further testing shows the issue persisted prior to https://github.com/micromatch/micromatch/pull/266. This issue should be mitigated by using a safe pattern that won't start backtracking the regular expression due to greedy matching.
Uncontrolled resource consumption in braces
The NPM package braces fails to limit the number of characters it can handle, which could lead to Memory Exhaustion. In lib/parse.js, if a malicious user sends "imbalanced braces" as input, the parsing will enter a loop, which will cause the program to start allocating heap memory without freeing it at any moment of the loop. Eventually, the JavaScript heap limit is reached, and the program will crash.
