The babel-plugin-transform-async-to-generator package, crucial for transpiling ES2017 async/await syntax into ES2015-compatible generator functions, saw a noteworthy update between versions 6.22.0 and 6.24.1. Both versions share the core functionality of enabling developers to use async/await in their code while maintaining compatibility with older JavaScript environments that might not natively support these features. They depend on babel-plugin-syntax-async-functions to parse the async/await syntax and babel-runtime for necessary runtime helpers.
The primary difference lies in the updated dependencies. Version 6.24.1 utilizes babel-helper-remap-async-to-generator and babel-helper-plugin-test-runner at version 6.24.1, a bump from version 6.22.0 in the prior release. This suggests refinements or bug fixes within the helper functions responsible for the core transformation logic. Developers upgrading should be aware of potential subtle behavioral changes introduced by these dependency updates. The package license remained MIT making it developer friendly.
For users, especially those targeting older browsers or environments, this plugin remains a vital tool in the Babel ecosystem. It allows them to leverage the improved readability and maintainability of async/await without sacrificing compatibility. The babel-helper-plugin-test-runner update also indicates improvements testing environment and better quality of the code for client projects. Keeping an eye on the changelogs of the helper packages is advisable for developers needing to ensure precise behavior after upgrading. Essentially developers get a more tested and probably more stable async to generator transpilation.
All the vulnerabilities related to the version 6.24.1 of the package
Babel vulnerable to arbitrary code execution when compiling specifically crafted malicious code
Using Babel to compile code that was specifically crafted by an attacker can lead to arbitrary code execution during compilation, when using plugins that rely on the path.evaluate()or path.evaluateTruthy() internal Babel methods.
Known affected plugins are:
@babel/plugin-transform-runtime@babel/preset-env when using its useBuiltIns option@babel/helper-define-polyfill-provider, such as babel-plugin-polyfill-corejs3, babel-plugin-polyfill-corejs2, babel-plugin-polyfill-es-shims, babel-plugin-polyfill-regeneratorNo other plugins under the @babel/ namespace are impacted, but third-party plugins might be.
Users that only compile trusted code are not impacted.
The vulnerability has been fixed in @babel/traverse@7.23.2.
Babel 6 does not receive security fixes anymore (see Babel's security policy), hence there is no patch planned for babel-traverse@6.
@babel/traverse to v7.23.2 or higher. You can do this by deleting it from your package manager's lockfile and re-installing the dependencies. @babel/core >=7.23.2 will automatically pull in a non-vulnerable version.@babel/traverse and are using one of the affected packages mentioned above, upgrade them to their latest version to avoid triggering the vulnerable code path in affected @babel/traverse versions:
@babel/plugin-transform-runtime v7.23.2@babel/preset-env v7.23.2@babel/helper-define-polyfill-provider v0.4.3babel-plugin-polyfill-corejs2 v0.4.6babel-plugin-polyfill-corejs3 v0.8.5babel-plugin-polyfill-es-shims v0.10.0babel-plugin-polyfill-regenerator v0.5.3