Babel Preset Stage 3 offers a convenient collection of Babel plugins, easing the adoption of JavaScript features nearing standardization. Developers aiming for forward compatibility while targeting older environments find it invaluable. Comparing version 6.11.0 with its predecessor, 6.5.0, reveals a subtle but significant enhancement: the addition of babel-plugin-syntax-trailing-function-commas as a dependency. This addition enables support for trailing commas in function parameter lists and calls, a feature designed to improve code readability and maintainability, particularly when dealing with multi-line function definitions.
While both versions include crucial transformations like babel-plugin-transform-async-to-generator for asynchronous function support and babel-plugin-transform-exponentiation-operator for the convenient ** operator, the inclusion of trailing commas syntax makes version 6.11.0 more aligned with modern JavaScript syntax conventions, further streamlining developer workflows.
Upgrading to version 6.11.0 ensures that your code can leverage this modern syntax without causing compatibility issues in older JavaScript engines. This small change highlights Babel’s commitment to staying current with evolving language features, offering a progressive approach to JavaScript development. For developers embracing the latest syntax improvements, version 6.11.0 is the preferred choice for Babel Preset Stage 3.
All the vulnerabilities related to the version 6.11.0 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