Babel plugin transform ES2015 modules to CommonJS, specifically versions 6.6.2 and its predecessor, 6.6.0, primarily serve developers seeking compatibility between modern JavaScript (ES2015+) modules and older CommonJS environments, often encountered in Node.js projects or legacy build systems. These plugins automatically convert ES2015 import and export statements into require and module.exports constructs, facilitating seamless integration. Both versions share identical core dependencies: babel-types, babel-runtime, babel-template, and babel-plugin-transform-strict-mode, ensuring feature parity in basic module transformation and strict mode handling. They also utilize the same testing framework, babel-helper-plugin-test-runner.
The key difference lies in their release dates. Version 6.6.2 was released on March 1st, 2016, following version 6.6.0, which was released on February 29th, 2016. While the core functionalities remained consistent, this small time difference likely signifies bug fixes or minor internal improvements implemented in version 6.6.2, enhancing stability or performance. Developers should generally opt for the latest stable version (6.6.2 in this case) to benefit from these refinements. Both versions are licensed under MIT, granting extensive freedom for usage and modification, and reside within the Babel repository on GitHub, providing transparency and community access.
All the vulnerabilities related to the version 6.6.2 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