Babel Preset Stage 3 is a valuable tool for JavaScript developers aiming to leverage features nearing standardization. Version 6.24.1 offers a subtle but important upgrade over the previous stable release, 6.22.0. Both presets package a suite of Babel plugins that transform cutting-edge JavaScript syntax into code compatible with older environments, ensuring broader browser support. The core functionality remains consistent: enabling features like trailing function commas, async generator functions, the async/await syntax via transform-async-to-generator, the exponentiation operator (**), and object rest/spread properties.
The key distinction lies in the updated dependencies within version 6.24.1. Specifically, babel-plugin-transform-async-generator-functions and babel-plugin-transform-async-to-generator are bumped from version 6.22.0 to 6.24.1. While other dependencies remain the same. For developers, this signifies a potential refinement in how these specific asynchronous features are transpiled, possibly addressing bugs, improving performance, or aligning more closely with evolving ECMAScript specifications. Upgrading to 6.24.1 is generally recommended to benefit from these improvements and maintain compatibility with the latest Babel ecosystem updates and it's particularly beneficial if your codebase heavily relies on async/await and async generators. Consider reviewing the changelogs for the updated plugins to understand the precise nature of the changes and assess their impact on your project.
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