Babel-preset-env is a powerful tool designed to streamline JavaScript development by allowing developers to use the latest ECMAScript features while ensuring compatibility across different browsers and environments. Versions 1.5.0 and 1.5.1 represent incremental improvements, sharing the core functionality of intelligently compiling JavaScript code based on specified target environments.
Examining the dependencies, both versions rely on a suite of Babel plugins to handle specific ES2015 transformations, such as arrow functions, block scoping, classes, and destructuring. Key dependencies like browserslist and semver are present, highlighting the package's focus on browser compatibility and version management. The invariant package suggests a commitment to code robustness through runtime checks.
The primary difference between the two versions lies in the release date. Version 1.5.1 was released approximately two days after 1.5.0. This small gap likely reflects bug fixes, minor updates, or performance improvements that didn't warrant a major or minor version bump. Because the majority of the content between the packages are identical, they share the same dependencies and dev dependencies.
For developers using babel-preset-env, both versions offer a robust solution for modern JavaScript development. When choosing a version to use, developers would generally use the newest stable version unless they run into problems with it.
All the vulnerabilities related to the version 1.5.1 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