Babel Preset React App, a foundational component of Create React App, underwent significant changes between versions 2.2.0 and 3.0.0. Version 3.0.0 introduces an updated Babel environment, relying on newer versions of key dependencies. Notably, babel-preset-env jumps from 1.2.1 to 1.4.0, and babel-preset-react updates from 6.22.0 to 6.24.1, which means improved support for the latest JavaScript and React features.
A key addition in version 3.0.0 is the introduction of babel-plugin-dynamic-import-node and babel-plugin-syntax-dynamic-import. These plugins provide support for dynamic imports, allowing for code splitting and on-demand loading of modules, potentially leading to improved initial load times and overall application performance. This is incredibly valuable for developers aiming to optimize their React applications for speed and efficiency.
While many of the core Babel plugins remain, their versions are generally bumped, with the more modern Babel 6.24.1 standard, to ensure compatibility and access to the latest bug fixes and performance enhancements. The peer dependency on babel-runtime is also updated, requiring a minimum version of ^6.23.0. From version 2 to version 3, Babel runtime becomes a peer dependency instead of a direct dependency. These kinds of updates ensure that projects using babel-preset-react-app are configured with configurations tailored for modern development practices, offering a more robust and feature-rich compilation pipeline.
All the vulnerabilities related to the version 3.0.0 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